INTERSTATE 2
Driving home, thinking of his mother and him when he was little more than a baby, a photo. First only his mother for a moment. Doesn’t know where the thought came from or why the picture popped in. But suddenly — forgets what he was thinking of just before her, probably nothing much of anything — there was her face and neck and open-collar top of the summer dress she was wearing in the photo and then the whole photo, backdrop and concrete ground and crossed knees included, her shoes and his bare feet, even the white border or frame or outline with the notched or jagged edges or whatever one calls them when they’re by design kind of frayed, the style for years then, which he knows has a name because he recently read it in an article on photography but forgets or never recorded it in his head. Something he saw on the road set off the thought? He was thinking, he now remembers, of the car radio, what the call numbers were, if that’s what they’re called, of the public radio station of the little state he was driving through, 90.1 or 90.3 or 89.3 or 5, which he somehow thinks is one of them from the trip up a couple of days ago or should he try to find the public station of the much larger state bordering this one, which could also be one of those, when the photo first appeared to him. Bumper sticker “Save the whales, harpoon a fat chick” was the last one he noticed or remembers. Few minutes ago few miles back. But that’d have nothing to do with his mother since she was, till she started dying and became gaunt, slender all her life, even in her child photos, and though “chick” could relate to him in just his age in the photo, he doubts it was that. Said to himself when he saw the sticker “Stupid, how can a guy drive with it on his car? Stamps him as offensively dumb. Or if he’s driving someone else’s car, how can he without feeling embarrassed unless he also thinks it’s funny? But could be he never noticed it or realized, if it was someone else’s car or maybe even in all the time he owned the car, if he’d bought it used with the sticker on, what it means.” So not that one and no billboards he can recall or signs of any kind along the road and nothing on the radio, because up to about an hour before the thought he only had on solo piano and harpsichord tapes, and nothing about the music or instruments could relate, since his mother didn’t like that kind or play. Also no people in passing cars he can remember reminding him of his mother or her sort of pompadour hairstyle in the photo or her clothes or anything like that when she was that age, early thirties, or him as a toddler or just his mother, period, at any age, even when she was home and then in the hospital dying. He thinks “toddler” ‘s the right word for someone just under or around one. Or anything obvious or just somewhat concealed he saw or thought suggesting that particular photo, so maybe it was something from underneath. But to be a toddler don’t you have to be up and sort of walking with short tottering steps? And he wasn’t walking or even standing on his own when that picture was taken, his mother said, which was why she was holding him sitting up in her lap. He’d learned to walk and talk late. Maybe his kids playing or squabbling — but you don’t learn to talk, maybe not even to walk, and if you’re delayed it’s only because you started late. Or for a while the youngest angelically sleeping or something they said or did in back of the car or just being there with him acting as both mommy and daddy today and for the next few days had something to do with it in some way, but he doesn’t see how one of those would. Doesn’t know where the photo is now. Not among the ones he owns. Those he goes through about twice a year, either because he happens to come upon the two toiletry cases they’re in in his desk at home — three to four times a year’s more like it — when he’s searching for something else in the drawer or because he wants to look at his kids when they were younger or babies or just-borns in the hospital that day or next or his wife at their marriage party they gave or a couple of years before that or after, before the kids were born, and especially sometimes the two nude Polaroids of her he took when she was eight months pregnant with their first and had breasts twice the size they usually are and the only shots of her, at least one of them, other’s just shadow, with pubic hair. His mother’s photographs, if he doesn’t have them, are all gone, so it’s gone, though he doesn’t know how he let that happen. Particularly this one and a number of other old to ancient ones — his parents as children, his father as a lifeguard and in the army, their marriage photo and his mother’s first day at work in a bakery when she was fifteen, her parents here and in their original country, her grandparents only there, some with them young and one with her grandmother or grandfather with his or her parents and grandparents, but was photography even born then or that advanced where one could take family portraits? That article he read said something about it but he forgets what, though he thinks the reason he got it out of the library was to find out. But the missing photographs had something to do with a plastic bag they were in in her basement where most got damaged or ruined by the moisture down there along with being in the enclosed bag for so many years, making it even worse. So he threw most of these out, didn’t he? — not his infant one, which wasn’t among them, but those where there were no faces anymore and the photographs were mostly mold. He was in shorts in the photo, no shirt on, no doubt diapers underneath, the shorts of course. Whenever he had a shirt on, no matter how hot the day, then underneath it an under one, for that’s how his mother was right into his teens. Backs of her fingers clinging to him around the chest, short-sleeved summer print dress, she looked so beautiful, even with what to him seemed like too much lipstick and showing too many big teeth and the comical hair. She was a beauty all right, no question of it, dark, hair and skin, small features, high cheeks, gracefully slim, though big breasts in the photo because she was probably still suckling him, or he suckling, she nursing, since hers, unlike his wife’s, were any other time pretty small. Less chance of breast cancer he once overheard her say, so of course she dies of it, where even the little ones she had had to be lopped off. “If I hadn’t nursed you I bet I would’ve been spared,” she said, “not that I’m blaming anyone. I wanted the experience if I was only going to have this one child and it was also then the rage.” He said he thought that nursing gives one a better chance of avoiding breast cancer, but read that ten to twenty years before he said it and wonders if doctors still think it’s true. Or was he thinking of prostate cancer and masturbating, but anyway, maybe her breasts could be the “whales” and “fat” and he the “chick,” if that’s the way the mind works, or just his, but too far-fetched so seriously doubts it. Taken in the narrow backyard of their apartment at the time. First-floor floor-through. Tall green wooden fence behind them, though photo was black and white, painted that color to simulate grass and leaves, she said, couple of clay pots hooked on nails on the fence with some kind of ivy inside. All the vegetation they had back there except for a few plants from grapefruit seeds in coffee and big juice cans and an ailanthus tree from a neighbor’s yard covering part of theirs, none of that in the photo. Summer deck chair she’s sitting on, the attached foot and leg rest. Lots of curly hair, both, or hers more wavy than curly, his a bit lighter than hers. Who took it? Not his father. No matter how simple the camera, and he thinks the only kind they ever had, and they got a second when the first broke, was where you pressed a button and the front part, looking like a bellows, sprung open. His father didn’t make coffee, toast breads, boil eggs, change pillowcases, draw blinds, take pictures, work the TV, line the garbage pail with newspaper, didn’t even put in lightbulbs — he said he usually got the screwing-in part caught and was afraid if it shorted he’d have to disconnect and even change a fuse, besides not knowing how to open the stepladder to reach the socket. “I’m inept — how do you like that word? — at everything but my work and getting to and from it,” was how he liked to phrase it whenever she asked him to do a chore, and which she said was his alibi for doing nothing around the house as if he thinks his son and she are his slaves. But his light to lighter hair. She in fact used to say he was blond till he was five or six, “what they call a towhead in other religions,” but he never saw any evidence of it. No envelopes with hair, or photos, and none of his relatives remembered him that way. Also used to say his eyes were blue, at least a bluish green, till he was three, but his father said that was hooey and just another example of her wanting to think of him as some rich little patrician kid just as she’d like to see herself as a rolling-in-dough old-money lady. “Anyone for Jell-O?” his father liked to joke when he thought she was putting on an aristocratic voice or even an English one and manner. “Crickets, anyone?” was another, hand raised as if he had a tennis racket in it. “Then rickets, rockets?” till she told him to cut it out — her voice and accent, if she had one, were as regular and natural as anyone’s and she was a person without airs. “What are some other examples?” he asked his father and remembers him saying — they were sitting in the sand, no blanket or towel under them, maybe their one time at the ocean together like that, meaning actually down at the water and not on a boardwalk or seeing it from a bungalow deck — where he can even remember his father’s bathing suit and without summer sandals or shoes or just socks, which means of course how long had his father had that suit before he saw it? — maybe from before their marriage, so twenty to twenty-five years? A suit can stay in style as long as that? Just stay in a drawer without being moth-eaten? Anyway, it’s — bathing suit and beach — they’re, rather, what made that time in the sand especially memorable, though he forgets what beach it was — if it really was an ocean and not a lake — even what state it was in. Did they take a long car trip one summer, or just a short one, a week, two, a few days? Certainly one to Canada and back or cross-country or tour of the South, let’s say, he’d have no problem remembering. And it had to be some time when he was between ten, he’d say, the way he sees it in his head, and his early teens. Just him and his father or with his mother but she wasn’t with them on the beach that day, or maybe she was, strolling along it or wading or swimming or going for refreshments or back to their cabana to change if there was one. He tries to remember it, her in a swimsuit, which wasn’t so rare, the three of them on the beach or walking back from it to the car or someplace or even looking for seastones or shells along the water, but nothing comes. A trip like that, place to place, lake to lake, ocean to lake or whatever…And it could have been after Labor Day for several days, or Indian summer October because his father couldn’t get away sooner and they took him out of school that one time for it, but an event like that he’d remember easily. But one night here and other there, since there were so few trips of any extent with them — he can’t right now remember one, so maybe there was none, though does remember summer vacations for two weeks to a month in various rented bungalows and once in the mountains with them with an aunt who rented one — but anyway he wouldn’t think he’d forget a fairly to semifairly long car trip like that, especially if it was just his father and him traveling together, when a car pulls up, he looks at it after a while because it stays even with his but is in the passing lane. Man in the passenger seat is staring at him when he turns to it and he nods with no expression and man smiles and he smiles back and goes back to his no-expression and quickly looks front and thinks What gives with this guy? Funny look, even a menacing one, and kind of a sinister smile. Nah, he’s being paranoid again. Gets like that a lot, or just sometimes. It’s living in the city and reading its papers and occasionally seeing its TV news, or maybe just having been brought up in one and in a rougher city than his now and often in a tough neighborhood or bordering on one. But then it was different, isn’t that what they always say? But it really wasn’t. There were plenty of violent gangs, kids occasionally mugged you on the street in daylight and tried to bugger you in the boys’ room in high school or that’s what they said they were going to do, and some of them who you even knew beat the shit out of you if you so much as gave them what they thought was a dirty look. But at least they didn’t shoot you on the spot over nothing or at least not with anything more sophisticated than a zip gun, which half the time blew up in their faces instead. But he sees a look like this, he thinks he’s being threatened, when a couple of times it turned out the other person thought his look was threatening him. That mean the other person’s paranoid too? He’ll have to think about that. It could be that because he felt threatened he started to look threatening and that’s when the other guy felt threatened, but who knows. But with this one, and why don’t they move ahead instead of staying exactly even with him, or fall back and get behind him if they’re not going to pass? Maybe this is the speed the driver’s settled on as the fastest he can go without being pulled over, sixty-five on a fifty-five-miles-per-hour road, and he like a lot of drivers likes to drive in the passing lane. If another car pulls up behind his and wants to pass, he’ll move over to the next middle lane. But that is paranoia, isn’t it: someone you think’s threatening you when he’s not? His wife says it’s just a projection of his own hostility, something she thought up or read but those were her exact words, and maybe it is but at the time he told her that was just a lot of Freudian crap, or Jungian or Rankian or whoever he used, without knowing much about Freud and nothing about the others. His kids know the word? Bets not, or not the youngest. With this man though, and car’s still even with his and when he turns to it the man’s staring at him kind of creepily again, and he nods and looks front — maybe, but he doubts it, but maybe he’s just a character who doesn’t know how to smile right or look nicely at anyone he doesn’t want to con or get something from or is trying out his creep look on him for someone else he’s going to really do in later on and could be driving to now. Or else he’s carrying out some sort of grudge on him meant for someone else — maybe even the driver — but is doing it in this car-quick kind of distant or removed or anonymous way. For it’s just two cars driving fast next to each other on a major highway for a few miles and then in another minute or two one of them will speed up or drop back or exit and they won’t see each other again. Thinks of looking over again, but maybe he shouldn’t for if the man really has nothing against him and it’s just the unfortunate way he looks or even some facial paralysis making him stare or smile like that, but probably not, then he might start getting angry at him for constantly turning his way, like “Who you looking at, sucker — something you see you don’t like?” But looks anyway, almost in hopes of finding the guy minding his own business, and there’s that same awful smile and their car is much closer now, might even be straddling the dividing line — it is, he sees, by a little — and the man if he leaned out of it and stretched his arm could almost touch his car. “Hey, watch out, you’re too near,” he says, but the man’s window is up while his is down and the man says “What?” and actually smiles nice and looks pleasant when he says it and indicates with his hand for him to roll his window down. Down? What’s he mean? His is up and mine’s down. Forget it, guy’s a wise guy or stupid or just nuts but more likely just a wise guy and driver doesn’t seem any better, nodding at him now but with this look of seriousness and with his right hand, while he holds the wheel with his left, making a rolling-down motion. He nods, looks front and steers the car to the right till it’s almost straddling the line, and slows down to around fifty.
Kids in back making too much noise now. Or maybe they have been for a while but he just hears it now. But too much with that man having looked at him before like that and their car getting so close, though now it’s a good two hundred feet in front of him. So maybe he shouldn’t say it, leave them alone, they’re being all right, but the noise is kind of irritating if just as noise and he says “Kids, come on — Margo, be quiet, enough.” She says “Why’s it always have to be me just because I’m older? She could be doing something wrong too.” “Then Julie, Margo, both of you — anyway, I’m a little nervous, maybe just tired from the drive, and your noise is disturbing me, so please tone it down.” “What, Daddy?” Julie says and he says “I said, and come on, you must have heard me, I said to tone it down, be a little less noisy — you both are, so you both.” “We’re not doing anything. We’re playing games together, not hurting each other, and having fun. You want us to have fun, don’t you, and not pester you when you’re driving like you’ve said we do?” “Please, don’t, you’re too young for that, to also start trading cleverness or something with me, using my words for that — what I said I said and so on — to get out of it. I’m trying to concentrate on my driving, which you’ve got to on a big highway and so many cars and trucks, and I need you two to be a lot less roughhouse than you are.” “Be less what?” Julie says. “We’re not,” Margo says. “We’re even being quiet, playing well for a change, so you should be happy.” “Okay, nothing, really, fine,” he says, “but just try to keep your voices at that level you just spoke, both of you, kind of low. In fact, don’t try, just do it; please?” The other car’s slowed down to where it’s even with his again but back in the middle of its lane and man’s staring at him when he turns to it but with this new look of niceness and no sinister smile. He smiles, one of those flash ones which means he’s smiling because something isn’t nice or funny, and looks front. Probably shouldn’t have done that. Just smiled naturally or not at all. But what’s with them? Don’t they know they’re distracting him, which could be dangerous for him driving the car and then for them if he’s distracted into them or too near them by losing a little driving control? Well, it won’t go that far, but the level of danger is raised a little he’d think by their looks, even if those were nice ones they just gave, for something ugly’s obviously underneath, and now coming back and such and what went on before and also raised by their driving fifty in the speed lane which seems to be just to stay even with him — what else could it be for? — and they should know all that. They should just leave him alone. He has kids in the car too, goddamnit, don’t the idiots see? Forget it, they’re just trying to needle him, for some reason. He’s their target or mark on the road for the moment, source of entertainment because they’re bored with driving or their own conversation, the music on the radio — they can’t locate any station or bring it in clear in this sort of open-land stretch — or they’ve run out of tape cassettes or have none to play and to each other nothing much ever to say — but having kids’ fun in their own big dumb men’s way, or they just don’t like his face, he reminds them or one of them — the passenger — of someone the guy really hates or maybe the passenger even thinks he’s that man. He could speed up but feels they’ll only keep up with him. Or go into the next middle lane or even to the slow one and drive slower in either but how slow can you go on this big Interstate without being a danger yourself with all the cars flying by and buses and trailer trucks? Certainly first cop car he spots he’ll honk for or pull over if it’s on the side of the road or the divider, but he better keep a sharp lookout, and first turnoff or rest stop that comes up, he’ll pull off. He rolls his window up all the way. That’s at least some protection if he needs it or a signal to them to leave off or just enough of a shield between them where they’ll now feel they can’t get through to him. Other front window’s down a little but that’s okay, nothing wrong on that side. Kids’ windows are only pushed out a little at the back and clasped. Glances around to them and then in the rearview. They’re all right, playing quietly by themselves, Julie, because of her yawn, probably starting to nod off, but no sign they’re aware of any uneasiness in him. Senses some arm action from the car and looks and man’s smiling nice-like again and saying something like “Your window, your window, roll your window down,” and points to his chest and then his mouth and then to him as if he has something to tell him and now with this slightly urgent face, and then to the highway on their side and all the time the driver’s nodding agreeingly. “What?” he mouths. “Can’t make it out. What? Sorry,” and looks front and drives into the next middle lane. He thinks “They’re trying to inveigle me into something, that’s all, I can see it a mile away.” They drive into the lane he just left and stay even with him. He glances over and both are looking at him now and smiling, then the driver laughing, the passenger then laughing, the driver then laughing hysterically it seems like. “Hey, what gives already?” he says through the window. “What the heck you want?” “What’s that, Daddy?” Julie says and he says “Nothing, sweetie, go back to your nap.” “I wasn’t sleeping.” “Really, nothing, I was only saying out loud before something I was thinking inside.” “You were talking to those men there,” Margo says and he says “Those men, in the car beside us? No, but don’t pay any attention to them, wave or anything, you hear? Are you both listening to me?” and Julie says “What men?” and Margo says “The car outside my side,” and Julie says “I didn’t see them, I wasn’t waving, maybe Margo,” and he says “No fights, both of you, just play or be quiet,” and he looks in the rearview a few seconds later, has to shift it around a little, and they’re back to what they were doing or something else. He turns to the men. They’re still laughing or only started laughing again when he turned to them but not as hysterically and the passenger shaking his head at him as if how could anyone be such a jerk? and he looks front. Why’d he even answer them? They didn’t hear, but just with his mouth moving. They’re crazy or just bastards. Best to ignore them. They could sideswipe his car or whatever’s the word. Sideswipe. That what they’re after? Bump or graze his car a little with theirs to give him a scare? Even to send him off the road or into another car for all he knows? They might know how to do it without losing control of theirs, but he could lose control. That could be what they want, for him to crash, but more realistically to just scare him and they might be so stupid as to think everyone can get back control of their car once they lose it for a second, at least any man his age, so they actually might not have any thoughts about making him crash, but he could. He’s a good driver but not great. Car spinning on a slick or ice, he never knows what to do. Brake, no brake, left when it goes right, right when it goes right, steering the car where? and it’s happened. Then out the side of his eye the passenger’s hand out the window, which is all the way down now he sees when he looks straight at him, and pointing it to the front of his car and down, the wheel or somewhere near. “Something is wrong with your car,” the man seems to be saying. “Something is wrong where I’m pointing, up front.” “Something’s wrong with some part of the front of my car?” he mouths, not wanting the kids to hear, and the man nods and the driver, looking back and forth at the road and him, nods vigorously, saying “Yeah, babe, yeah,” and the man says with his expression and hand “Roll down your window so I can tell you what it is.” Wait wait wait. Something’s been wrong with his car and their staying even with him and everything all this time was for that? And the laughing before, even the hysterics, was because they knew he was thinking they were doing something terrible or nuts or intending to when it was only his car and safety and stuff and even his kids they were concerned about? Good intentions all along? So maybe it’s that, it seems to be, which he’s relieved about but now worried about his car, though it’s probably only the air in his left front wheel’s low or hubcap there’s loose, it’s not a flat, he’d feel that, nor his door the man’s pointing at and he can see it’s shut tight, or maybe something’s stuck to his fender or somewhere — the grille — a dead animal, a bird, even, and he rolls his window down and says “What is it — the wheel?” and the passenger says “No, man, it’s nothing, but this,” and sticks his left hand out beside his right and there’s a gun in it. Guy’s got a gun, pistol, fingers around the trigger part. “What’re you, fucking crazy?” he screams and speeds up and they catch up and he yells “Girls, down, duck, duck,” and they say “What’s wrong?” “What’s the matter, Daddy?” “What’s ‘duck’?” Julie says and he yells, quickly seeing the guy alongside with the gun out on him, “Down in the seat, away from the windows, now, now, get down,” car staying beside his. He takes his hands off the wheel and keeps shaking them over it and says “God, God, what am I going to do? they’re trying to kill us,” before the car starts hooking right and he grabs the wheel and straightens it, man with the gun out and both men laughing, girls screaming. “Down, keep down,” he yells, “are you both down?” and in the rearview sees they’re down because he doesn’t see them and from below somewhere still screaming, or just one is, scream’s so loud. “On the floor, get on the floor if you’re not, even if you have to take your seats off, seatbelts, on the floor, now,” and floors the gas pedal till the car gets up to as fast as it can get and starts vibrating, men right beside him, arm out with the gun out, driver clutching the wheel but lunging back and forth in the seat and bouncing on it he seems so excited and passenger not laughing now, serious, both hands on the gun, arms resting on the window frame, finger seems to be on the trigger, head cocked and one eye closed, taking aim at him. “Don’t,” he shouts, looking front, “don’t, please don’t, I’ll crash and kill the kids, they’re in back on the floor,” and slows down, men’s car speeds past, good move, what else? slow down some more, into the slow lane, maybe off the highway, even into a ditch, anything better than getting shot at, slows down, into the slow lane, no cops around, no other cars or trucks except far ahead and in the rearview way back if that’s a truck, men’s car into the middle lane he was just in and slows down, another car in the passing lane speeds past doing eighty, maybe ninety and he honks and keeps honking and it honks back but never slows, no houses on the road, just fields and trees, way off a farm, dart off and crash if you have to but going slow and where you have some control. He see a good spot? Too many trees or steep inclines. Maybe shoot across the highway and stop in the grassy middle strip or even cross it if he can find an opening in the fence and then north, but some maniac doing eighty or ninety on this side might suddenly appear from nowhere and hit them. Can’t keep my eye on everything at once. Some cars and a bus pass in the passing and left middle lane. He honks. Men’s car’s slowed down till it’s almost even with his, gun out on his head again but with some kind of cloth over it and the arms, just the barrel he sees, passenger laughing and driver back into hysterics and slapping the dashboard with one hand. “You down, kids?” he yells, “you still on the floor?” and they just scream, never stop, two of them, blocking out his thoughts, and he yells “Stop, stop, I can’t think, speak, tell me where you are, you both on the floor? — I got to know,” and Margo says “Why were we—” and he yells “Answer me,” and she says “Yes, we’re here, but why were we going so fast before and now slow — can we get up?” and Julie says “We stopping, Daddy, those men with the guns away?” and he says “Not stopping, don’t get up,” and looks for them in the rearview, not there, “Or stopping, yes,” and slows down, more cars passing and pass in the two last left lanes and he honks, men alongside him, gun out, guy laughing, and goes off the road, on the shoulder, wants to get as far off the road as he can but tries to keep from getting too near the incline, which is only a couple of feet deep he sees — not even — but car can turn over if he gets only the right wheels in, though comes to that, chance it, they shouldn’t get too hurt if it just rolls over once and stops and he gets them out quick, wants to roll down the right window all the way so there won’t be any smashed glass but he can’t, seat belt, and unbuckles his and rolls the window down while he holds the wheel and yells “Hold on, stay down — kids, you hear? we’re going to stop,” and brakes hard, expects shots, kids bang into the back of his seat by the sounds of the two slams and his head’s thrown forward and bangs into the windshield but doesn’t smash it and he’s snapped back into his seat, looks up, car’s going on and arm’s in and in fact seems to be speeding up but still in the same middle lane and then arm’s out with the gun and no cloth and aimed back at them, two hands it seems around it and from in back the kids’ screams and he yells “Girls, duck, down, duck down,” and throws himself to the floor, shots, two, two more and screaming and ripping of metal in his car both. “Oh my God, oh Jesus, oh no, my darlings,” and gets up, car’s way off, jumps around on the seat on his knees and looks over it and down to the floor. Margo’s screaming, Julie, nothing, eyes closed, Margo’s opening on him. Blood around and on them both, blood running down his face but he’s too alive and alert and no pain so he knows he’s not hurt and it must just be some cut on his forehead, but Julie looks dead. She has to be hit. But maybe just her head slamming against the seat before and she’s stunned or out cold but she’ll be up or she’s faking and he says “Julie, you all right?” and there’s nothing and he says “Margo, you?” and she says “Daddy, your head,” and he says “Hell with my head, but you’re all right, right?” and she says “My head really hurts, I think I might’ve broken it,” and he says “No no, you’re okay — Julie, you all right? You okay? What is it, dear? Get up. Margo’s fine. We’re all fine. It’s over now. We’re safe. Don’t stay there. Tell me. Don’t pretend if you’re not hurt. Margo says she’s not pretending. Really hurt, I mean. Julie, lovie, do the same,” and Margo says “She’s not pretending, Daddy. She’s very hurt, look at the blood. It’s all over,” and jumps away as if suddenly afraid of it and sits up, legs tucked under her, on the seat. “It’s mostly from me, that blood there,” he says, wiping his head with his sleeves, “not her or that much of it,” and gets out on his side, cars passing, a truck, tries opening their door on that side, locked, beats the door with his fists and yells “Stop, stop,” then thinks “Quick, do something, save her if she can be saved,” and then shakes his head and says “No no, not that thought, never,” and gets on his seat and leans over the back to open their door and goes in back through it and sits on their seat, Margo in the corner, and lifts Julie up by her back and head and doesn’t want to look but has to and lifts her blouse and pulls down her pants and sees she’s shot in the chest near her neck. Blood’s coming out of it, has come out, one shot it seems and wipes the blood off her back and doesn’t see any place where the bullet could have come out, and presses his chest with his hand while holding her and screams “Oh no, oh my God, not my child, don’t do this, don’t, make her live, not Julie,” and Margo screams. “Shut up,” he yells and she says “My head hurts bad, Daddy, I feel sick,” and he yells “Fuck your head, your sister’s dying or dead,” and she starts crying and he says “I’m sorry, I’m going crazy, I don’t know what to do, what should I do? but be quiet,” and she’s quiet and he listens at Julie’s mouth for breathing but she isn’t. She is. Thinks he heard something, a gurgling, a voice. Then nothing. “What, what? You say something, Julie? Say it again.” Ear at her mouth. Nothing. Ear against her chest. The blood, which he feels on his cheek, and looks around for something to stop it, his hanky. Margo’s shouting something at him, the words “important, important,” and he says, pressing the hanky hard against the hole in Julie, “What’s that?” and she says “A hospital, it’s important we go to a hospital,” and he says “Where is one? You see a sign before for one?” and she shakes her head. “We could be driving around looking for one till she really dies. Right now let me just see. Maybe a police car will come and they’ll get an ambulance here quicker,” and listens against her chest around where he thinks her heart is. Nothing. Listens to other places where her heart could be. Parts her lips with his fingers, ear on her mouth. Thinks he feels something, breath, wet. Maybe it’s the blood again and he isn’t feeling anything like breath, or can’t hear it and closes his eyes and concentrates but there’s nothing, no breath, sound, gurgle. Wipes his ear where it felt wet and looks at it; was blood. Parts her lips and sticks his ear inside her mouth far as he can get it. Cars zip by, what sounds like a big truck. “Shut the noise,” he shouts, “shut the fuck up,” and Margo says “I’m not saying anything, I’m quiet,” and he says “The cars, trucks. Shh, I’m listening, I have to listen,” and sticks his ear back in, closes his eyes and holds his breath. Nothing. His ear out, lets her lips close, kisses them. They’re not warm, they’re not cold. That wasn’t why he kissed them but feels them again, kisses them. Same thing but colder than lips usually are he thinks. “Oh my God, help, someone help, we need help.” “Breathe into her,” Margo says. “What?” “Breathe into her. They do that; it could help.” “Oh fuck, I forgot,” and pounds his head with his fists and she says “Daddy, please, breathe into her. Down and up like I’ve seen, down and up,” and he says “I know how, I think, but nothing’s going to work, I know it,” and lays her on the floor and breathes into her mouth, comes up and takes a deeper breath and breathes into her, twice more, listens, nothing. “More, more, those times aren’t enough,” she says and he breathes into her, takes a deep breath, breathes into her, deep breath, eight more times till it’s ten, listens at her mouth and chest. “Go out, I’ll continue,” he says. “Flag down a car. That’s with your arms,” waving. “Stop one. Stop a lot. Maybe one will have a doctor.” “I still think we should go to a hospital, look for one.” “We will but first do what I say. We just need help. Now go.” She opens the door to the ditch side, starts to step out, he yells “No, don’t, you can get killed, the cars. What am I doing? Stay with your sister. She starts moving, yell for me.” He goes out, flags car after car. None stop or slow down. “I have to do this quickly,” he yells at the next few cars, “so someone stop. I got to get back to helping her — Margo, can you breathe into her?” he yells. Her head pops up; what was she doing? “If you can, do.” “What?” “Breathe into Julie, into her, you saw me. Anything might help — Stop,” he yells at a car that just passed in the slow lane. “My kid’s been shot,” pointing to his car, thinking the driver might be looking back in his mirrors. “Stop, stop, she’s dying, I need help,” running into the middle of the slow lane, looking at a car way off coming in it and then to the one that passed. “She may be dead. Please, please.” Other cars and trucks in all four lanes. One that was in the slow lane moves into the nearest middle lane when it gets about two hundred feet from him and the driver points to his own head and then him with the motion “You’re nuts.” He was going to stay there till it was about fifty feet away. He stays a few feet into the slow lane yelling. Most people look, several honk, some point, a little girl waves back at him, a few seem to say to each other “You see that?” a couple of them signal with their faces and hands “Sorry, can’t stop,” a motorcyclist goes past in the fast lane but never seems to see or hear him. “My daughter, my little girl, stop, I’m not kidding,” pointing to his car, front door open. “She’s shot, hurt, maniacs on the road, she was shot by a maniac.” Makes his hand into a gun and shoots it at his car. “Like this, a gun, don’t you hear?” All the cars in the slow lane go into the middle ones to pass him. “Shot, maybe killed, my kid, over there. Oh fuck it.” Starts running back to his car when he sees a car’s stopped about a hundred feet past him, now driving in reverse on the shoulder till it’s right in front of his. “What’s up?” the driver says from the window, “something the matter I can help?” a kid, around eighteen. “My daughter, in there, she’s shot. Some guys from another car. I think she’s dying or dead. I’m going crazy what to do.” “Better get her to a hospital fast. There’s one a few miles from here. Next exit. No, exit after that. What the heck’s the exit number? I know it, every day, and now I have to forget? But one of the next three exits for sure. They’re all one quick after the other, the first about five miles from here. There’s a big blue H sign with an arrow on it by the exit sign you’re to get off. Follow it to the hospital, there’ll be other H’s, a mile, no more than two from it.” “Please get out and stop other cars. I’ve got to get back to her. Maybe one will have a doctor. They’ll see our two cars here and think something’s wrong and stop.” “Put your emergency flashers on, that’s a signal,” putting on his. “And let me see her,” getting out. “I don’t know anything but I think I can tell if she’s too far gone.” “No, just go, even to call nine-one-one. Get an ambulance here; you know where we are. My other kid will wave down cars while I keep the shot one breathing. They’ll stop for a kid waving.” “Daddy,” Margo yells, “you have to come here. She’s changing colors and didn’t feel right when I touched her.” He drops to the ground and pounds it and screams “Oh my God, please don’t, You got to do something.” “You really better get her to the hospital,” the man shaking his shoulder. “That’s the quickest. They can pull her back even when she’s dead a minute. I’ll lead you.” “Right,” and he jumps up and gets in his car, man runs to his, and he says “Margo, buckle up,” looks back, Julie’s where he left her, man’s honking, wants to go. “She didn’t get up, did she? — make a move, a sound, nothing like that?” and Margo says “I don’t think so but I wasn’t always looking — what about her strange color? She’s not dead, is she?” and he says “She’s the same, no new colors, alive, only hurt, she’ll be fine, fine,” but doesn’t remember seeing. Just there, that’s all he recalls, on the floor, same spot, eyes closed, too peaceful, maybe with some new blood on her. “It’s smelling back here, Daddy.” Blood; has to go back to help her, stuff it up, get her breathing, keep her, he means. Man’s honking and pulls out. “Okay, okay — my keys, oh no,” and looks for them above the dashboard, feels his pockets, screams “My keys, where are they, why am I always losing things?” in the ignition, turns the key and there’s this ripping sound from it, ignition was still on and he says “Oh my darling, my darling, and I could’ve killed them both,” crying. Man honks and he screams “I can’t take it, I want to kill myself,” and follows the car into the slow lane and along the highway. “Daddy, you’re not going to crash us, are you?” and he thinks, “Oh I wish that was Julie saying that,” and says “No no, it’s just I feel so bad,” and she says “Me too — your lights on like that man’s?” and he puts the flashers on and says “How’s Julie doing? Some movement, anything with the eyes?” and she says “The same. I can’t look at her anymore, Daddy, I can’t,” and he says “Just tell me if you see any part of her move or breathe. I don’t know what to do. What should I? Go back and breathe into her, try and stop her cuts?” and she says “You’re doing right, Daddy, the hospital. They’ll do it better, they know how.” “Faster,” he yells out the window to the man, “go faster,” for the man’s only doing fifty-five, then sixty and then fifty-five again and keeps turning around to see if he’s still behind him. “I’m here, what do you think? just use the mirrors, you fucking idiot, don’t waste your time turning around to me and cutting your speed,” and honks and honks, gets very close as if to say speed up or move over, but the man looks back again and looks alarmed when he sees how close the cars are and waves for him to get farther back and he waves for the man to go faster, faster and yells “Faster, faster,” and the man speeds up to sixty and stays there. “Jerk, fucking schmuck, move, move,” and sees a sign for the next exit one mile ahead, no H on it, maybe it’ll be on the exit sign, but the man isn’t signaling right, maybe he never does when he’s changing lanes or leaving one for an exit, lots of drivers don’t, but it’d be a signal to him that this exit’s the one they get off. They approach the exit and the man passes it and soon after it is another sign for an exit a half mile ahead, H on it and he signals left and skirts around the man and speeds up and the man honks and tries keeping up with him and he gets off, doesn’t look back to see if the man’s behind, maybe he should because maybe the man’s trying to tell him that this is the wrong hospital, the next one which might be off one of the next two exits might be the right one for emergencies, looks in the rearview but man’s not there, no no, there couldn’t be two hospitals so close or the chances of it are very small in what seems like such an unpopulated area and besides that the man would have said something about it before they took off, or even if the man just realized it it’s too late and this hospital will have doctors and stuff to help and going fast as he can he follows the H signs and then Hospital signs and sees the hospital, it’s a large one so will probably have an Emergency and goes down its road and looks for a sign saying emergency, “Margo, look for a sign that says emergency,” he yells, “e-m-e-r — you know how to spell it. Is Julie all right, everything back there okay?” and she says nothing and he sees the sign and then the emergency entrance and parks in front, “There’s Emergency,” she says and he says “I know,” and honks and honks and nobody comes out or is around and he yells “What do I have to do, go in to get you? — this is an emergency, I’m honking emergency,” and looks in back, Margo’s crying, “Oh this is so tough for you, darling, I know,” Julie in the same place, “Julie, my love, Julie, how are you? Please be well. We’re here, getting help, dear, help,” and gets out of the car, says into the back “Stay put, both of you, I’ll fetch them,” and runs in thinking “‘Fetch,’ what a dumb word, how could I have used it?” and yells to a man behind a window in Reception “Emergency, emergency, my daughter’s been shot, someone, someone, I almost know it’s too late but help me, help her,” and a nurse charges through the double doors next to the reception window toward him and just as she’s about to say something he grabs her arms and shouts “Where were you? Why wasn’t someone outside? Get a doctor, breathing equipment, something to stop the blood, she’s in the car outside, dark gray one, charcoal,” and runs back out and into the backseat and sits her up and breathes into her, comes up, breathes into her, lips are cold but that can be just that she’s very hurt, the opposite somehow of a temperature from an infection or cold where the body’s doing something he doesn’t understand because of the hole in her and loss of blood. Breathes into her, listens, nothing, but he might not be hearing, where’s Margo? “Margo,” he yells, “Margo.” “I’m in front. I couldn’t stay. Is that all right? Did I do wrong?” She’s so sticky and limp, back, wrist, forehead, cold all over, she’s dead, has to be, the purple coloring and film, there’d be some life sign, eyes, he opens one, it looks dead, he didn’t act fast enough to save her, just should’ve kept breathing into her with Margo waving for help on the shoulder till someone came. Or taken her outside the car and breathed into her there so other cars would see and stop. Didn’t do what he should’ve done on the road to get away from the men which would have been what? Swerved more, tried earlier to dart into the median strip and then gone north on it, got off sooner onto the shoulder and immediately driven in reverse. Moment he knew she was shot, without even going in back, should’ve raced down the highway till he saw a sign for a hospital — just should’ve believed one would come. If only they’d stopped at the rest stop twenty miles or so back as Julie had asked him to instead of his insisting on getting home soon as they can, eager to get their things away and dinner prepared so he could read the mail and newspaper over a drink. She didn’t have to go to the bathroom — he asked her — she just wanted water, maybe a soda, she said, “No soda,” he said, “and water you can get at home.” Margo wanted something to drink too but also didn’t have to make. If only one of them had wanted to go to the bathroom badly, just said that, even lied they did and then got water or asked for soda there, he would have stopped. If only he’d wanted to pee, but really had to, was about to explode or felt it coming, or twenty miles or so back he’d been so tired that he needed a break and cup of coffee, he would have stopped and never have come up against those men or probably not. But don’t get sick over it. He can still help, who knows? and breathes into her, listens to her mouth, nose and chest. Stop kidding yourself, there’s nothing there and hasn’t been for minutes, she’s dead, that’s all, but you’re not a doctor, you don’t know, so she might not be, but she’s already started what’s got to be an impossible-to-change change, he can see and feel it, so she’s dead. “Oh God, she’s dead,” he thinks, and bursts out crying and cries hysterically and Margo leans over the seat and rubs his back and says “This is very sad, Daddy, I don’t know what to do either.” Hospital people are there now, may have been there awhile, all the doors open, nurses, doctors, aides, equipment, with so many people and stuff they’ll be certain to help her, each of them has that competent look and this is the country, not the city, where people are eager to help and do their job well and no one’s on the run, and someone says, pulling his arm, “Please come out, sir,” and he thinks “That’s a good sign,” the relaxed voice and calm look and pleasant manner, just by looking at her they can tell things aren’t as bad as he thought and maybe not even an emergency and he says “Wait, I have to put her down first,” but she’s not in his arms, not even in the car now, he must have put her down, or dropped her, God forbid, or handed her to someone or they took her away from him, even out of his arms, without him even knowing it, so what does that say? A bad sign, but he’s not sure. And where is she? He’s escorted out, Margo’s already out, and he’s looking around for Julie, best place he bets is on the ground and he looks down and doesn’t see her and up and sees a crowd of hospital people whisking a wheeled stretcher toward the emergency doors, her feet sticking out or rather her shoes and little socks and a bit of her legs, then they’re through the doors which fly open, second set of doors which fly open and they’re gone, he can’t see them and he yells “Julie,” and a man, probably a doctor because he’s in white, says “She’s in the treatment room, we’re trying to revive her, just tell me quick, is she allergic to anything?” “I don’t think so, I don’t know, my wife knows all that.” “How long ago would you say she was shot?” “Half hour or so, I think, twenty minutes, longer, twenty-five, maybe more.” “Was any other harm or blow done to her, knife, head injury in the car?” “No, it was from another car, guy with a gun on the highway, we didn’t crash but I did come to a quick stop and she might have hit her head against the back of the front seat, but minor, minor compared to the gunshot.” “Anything else about her medical history, can’t clot, prone to seizures, any severe recurring illnesses, is she on any drug now, anything to do with the heart, congenital, recent operations, like that?” “Not that I know of, healthy, normal, colds, flu and that thing with the throat, strep, operations I know there’s been none of, only one time when she was very young there was a scare, pressure behind the eyes they thought could be a brain tumor, but it turned out to be nothing,” and the man says “Stay here, or preferably in the lobby, but somewhere where we can speak to you immediately if we need to, and if we don’t then someone will come out to see you after we’re done,” and runs to the emergency entrance so fast that the doors don’t open when he gets there, has to step back and walk forward and they open and then the next ones open and the man’s running someplace and then’s gone, and he’s looking for Julie again, maybe they didn’t take her, on the ground, nothing there, I should go to her, he thinks, but what use could I be, since she has pros taking care of her now and they probably won’t let me in. But maybe I could get in, “I’m her father,” I could say, “I’ve rights and I could be of some help,” to comfort her, from the sides saying “You’ll be all right, you’ll be all right, dear, do what they say, Daddy’s here, your daddy who loves you.” Margo’s holding his hand and says “This is so awful, Daddy. What will Mommy say if Julie’s really dead? Please hold me,” and he thinks “That I should do and can use a little of too,” and he tries but is too weak to. He knows he should comfort Margo also, say something like “It’s going to be okay, you’ll see, with so many nice capable people helping and in a treatment room where they can treat her capably, how could it not be?” but he’s crying and says “Oh no, I was all wrong and you’re right, it really is awful, how could it be worse?” He doesn’t want to, more for her sake, but slips his hand out of hers and holds his head, tries to think. There’s something I should be thinking of, he thinks, but I don’t know what. No, there’s something I should be doing — that’s it — but what? What is it I should do? I should do something. I should go into the lobby, stay there, waiting to be of help, that’s true and I will, but something else. I should wake up. Oh, that’s the easiest way out, isn’t it? and the least realistic, though wouldn’t it be nice. But I should. I should really wake up. This is too terrible a dream, they don’t need me in the lobby, everything with her is okay, some would call it a nightmare — it is a nightmare, but why quibble over definitions? — and if I can wake myself up from it I should, for then everything would change, but there I go again, the world’s easiest and most desirable cop-out, the dream. But where will I be if I could? Julie will be here, Margo. Lee will be with her folks and I’ll call her soon as I can and say “Well, we just got here and everything’s fine. How you doing? Kids and I miss you.” Here is home and wouldn’t that be grand. But how do I get from this place to that, with Julie still being worked on in the treatment room, or so it seems like. There’s nothing wrong, that’s how, no treatment room, everything’s fine, or she is there but suddenly jumps up fully recovered, or just needs a little bandage here, some other place, and I sign a couple of papers, even write out a check, and we drive home. But it doesn’t even have to go that far — all that was a dream and you are home, that’s where you are. I’ll cook dinner for the kids, make sure they get to bed on time. School’s tomorrow, how about that? “We have clean clothes for tomorrow? You know your dresser drawers better than I, but if you need help, even if you want me to do a wash for tomorrow, let me know.” I’ll read Julie a story while her light’s out and they’re both in bed, Margo reading in her own room. Lately Julie’s been engrossed in Greek myths. Or I’ll sit in the hallway between their rooms, lights out for both of them and maybe on in the hallway, or only the hallway bathroom light on but with the door mostly closed, or their night lights which they haven’t had on for a week—“I’m too old to still be scared of the dark,” Margo had said, so Julie said she didn’t want hers on either but she’s been waking up and going into their room almost every night since because of it — and I’ll tell them a story. Continuation of the Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson saga after they got married and had a child whom they lug around in a back or chest carrier while solving crimes, or just a story started by the first thing that pops into my head. Moral or folk tale, fantasy, biblical or chivalric story retold mostly with dialog, but better, with my kind of mind, something made up on the spot and new. One incident leading to the next, usually humorous and where most of the characters have accents, and the ones I’ve had the best success at and with some great endings that even surprised me. Stories where they both said when I kissed them goodnight “That was a good one, you should write it down so you can tell it to us again.” I usually said “Don’t worry, I’ll remember,” but I never do. Or I can have one of them choose what kind of story she wants me to tell and even what characters she wants in it. “Who picked the topic last time?” I’ll ask, and whoever did it’ll be the other’s turn tonight. That is if they don’t say right away they want the same one. If they want, or Lee says they need a bath before bed, I’ll run one and make sure they dry themselves well, especially their poupies and hair, and then that they brush and floss their teeth. In other words, everything they’d do if their mother was here, though maybe not the flossing. If they want their dessert after the bath, then the teeth-brushing after. Maybe they have to brush their hair too before they go to sleep. I’ll ask them or Lee when I speak to her, which probably should be after dinner and before the bath but certainly at a time when they can both speak to her. If braids are needed, which I’ve seen them go to bed with, that I can’t do. TV? None, or a half-hour show at the most, preferably a public one. And where would Lee be now? Probably at her parents’, maybe helping her mother with supper or having tea with her dad. And the men? Get to where they were going? They think they have to make a detour? Still talking about what happened before, making jokes about it — Fucking great shot, probably got the two snotnoses with one bullet — or they even know how it came out? Maybe the man intentionally shot over their car just to scare them but his aim was bad or the driver made a sharp turn or car went over a bump moment the gun went off and they never saw the bullet or bullets go into the car. It certainly wasn’t anything the driver could see in his mirrors, since the windshield was smashed. He should tell the cops about them, give descriptions, but can he even remember what they look like? Clothes, even their hair? One wore a red tie, but who? Color of their car he knows but was it a two-door, four-door, station wagon, even a van? Seemed to be fairly new and the exterior shiny and clean and something seems to stick in his head that says it was a fancy model of some kind, but he’s not sure. What good would it do? Well, stop them from doing it to other people on the road or elsewhere, and to get even, of course. He should do that now, or later. Write it down, but who’s got a pen? And now, not later. Lots of it should come back, but for now it’s a jumble. Margo! and wheels around for her, yells “Margo,” sees she’s standing beside him, head against his side, frightened now she did something wrong, squeezing his hand. Gets on one knee and hugs her, starts crying and she cries and says “I love you, Daddy,” and kisses his head. If Julie were here she’d make a face and say “You kissed his hair; you’re not supposed to, it’s unsafe.” Wants to say “I love you” back, but no way to, not even nod. Doctor approaches. Doctor comes over. Stands in front of them. He’s sitting with Margo on the curb where the car was, someone must have moved it away; she sprawled across his thighs, though he doesn’t remember sitting down or how she got there and if he stroked her head and back, which is what he’s done other times when she was so distressed, till she went to sleep or shut her eyes. Someone in white at least, looking seriously at him and as if preparing a speech. Probably a doctor: whole outfit white, even the shoes. “Dr.,” tag on her jacket says, and after it — strains to read—“Lynette C. Jones.” Millions of Joneses but always a surprise to meet one. “Lynette” to do what: individualize, particularize, set apart or off? — heck, no reason he should be expected to come up with the right word now — like the Harrison Jones he once met, and another: Severen or something, and a Velásquez, that’s right. Why’s he thinking this? Fool, stupid, and bangs his forehead with his free palm. And who were those people in uniforms before who came over while he was in a stupor, he thinks, or just asleep but feeling drunk, and asked questions? They were told by him or someone else, he thinks, another doctor, male, that he’d see them inside. What color men? they asked, race, they mean. How many in the car? What make, car color, how many doors, did he see the license plate, what color plate then, did he know the men, any distinguishing features other than a red tie on one of them? Then they were gone, as if given strict orders to go, something he’d never do to police. Police. Margo answered some of it but they wanted him. Doctor’s hands cupped in front of her — clasped, he thinks he means, and at her chest, serious expression unchanged, takes a breath to speak. He looks away and says “I know she’s dead, that’s what you came over to tell me, let’s keep it between us and not the kid, but isn’t that so? Don’t answer if it is, and notice I’m not looking at your face to see what your expression says. Or maybe she’s alive. That you can tell me — no, don’t answer that either, for now if you didn’t tell me that’d mean she was dead, right? But if you just threw out that she was alive you’d see a man jump or rise but go clear up to the sky and take you and my daughter Margo here with him. Tell me she’s saved,” still not looking at her, looking at the curb, road, doctor’s shoes, even white eyelets for the white laces, car driving past, Margo still sleeping or resting or pretending to sleep or rest, not at the walk to the entrance where they were working over Julie on the run, or something they might have dumped or dropped on the ground along the way, a towel, tubing, syringe cap, bloody strip of gauze, but he doesn’t look. “Or just still alive, that she is, but not out of danger and that I can speak to her, even if for now she wouldn’t be able to hear. Too critical, but that can change, and it seems when people are critical, young people particularly, they always rally. Rally, what a word, Let’s all rally around, really rally around. If only we could, and prayer helped, and so on. My father, the doctors used to say, was a goner I can’t tell you how many times when we took him to the hospital in a coma, but he always, till he died at home in one — our home, a coma, meaning my home as a child, though I was a grownup when he died — managed to survive. I didn’t make myself clear then and haven’t been, but as I was telling myself before, something personal between me and me, I shouldn’t be able to — expected to, is what I told myself. Another bad example. And he was old and she’s so young, his body had gone through lots of drink and cigars and all that crap, while she hasn’t even started — milk and English muffins are what she loves most to drink and eat, chocolate milk, even better, and the muffins buttered with real butter — so I don’t have to believe in miracles regarding her survival. The young always have a greater chance of beating the odds or just surviving a tremendous body trauma, as they say, isn’t that true? And they should too, for reasons of living and right and what ought to be and what’s due them and also if there’s a God in heaven or some place, just because they are young and haven’t, so to speak — and not just the cigars and drink — lived, though there’s a lot of life in six years, little that it is. You must know what I mean. And six years, that’s how old she is; this one’s nine, and that’s it for my kids, meaning all there are. Anyway, I can believe anything you say so long as it’s good and hopeful, and I’m not taking you away from her, am I? and please excuse me that I didn’t go into the lobby to make it easier for you to speak to me and not have you come out so far, but there are people and police there I didn’t want to see. Keeping you, I mean,” looking at her, “I’m not keeping you away from her where you can be an important part of her surviving?” “No.” “You are a doctor, yes?” “I’m a doctor. Doctor Jones.” “I can see that and I can believe anything you say if it’s good or just a little hopeful, but I said that. I should say something I haven’t said, but what? I’m obviously in bad shape, that’s obvious, and you’re obviously a doctor, I can see that as I’ve said, the tag, but she’s dead, right? Don’t say it or even give it away with your face, try not to, at least, but she is, isn’t she, which is what you came over to tell me and I absolutely don’t want to hear. No one wants to die before his kids do more than I.” “We probably shouldn’t talk about it here, Mr. Fry.” “Frey, it’s pronounced, Frey, but that’s not important, so what is? Not my name.” “Mr. Frey, excuse me — but it’s probably not a good idea to discuss this in front of your daughter unless you’re sure she’s asleep and can’t hear.” “You mean this one.” “Yes.” “She’s asleep. I can tell by her light breathing and easy way she’s lying on me. But the other one. Don’t say.” She bites her lips. “There was no conceivable way,” she starts to say. “No conceivable way,” he says. She nods, is talking, saying something, something’s being said, thought he told her not to say anything, but she did, so what? Won’t listen, or can’t hear. No insides, nothing inside, so cold inside, no conceivable way she started to say, or said but it was part of something else she started to say that he missed, because nothing to hear with, everything’s frozen, all of him’s sick but he doesn’t want to vomit, can’t, if it’s coming up, even feel it, though he is faint, so good, let me go. Screens coming down around him, bang-bang. Shields, really, sky to floor. She’s talking, saying something, something’s still being said, she’s still standing, shaking her head now, commiserative look, though he told her not to look, whatever you do don’t give it away, windows closing around him, thick, then door following door following door, slamming shut and closing him off, voice in his head saying “I’ve been cut short,” but not his, knows whose it is. He believes in quick spirits? Thinks he gets what the whole thing means. Hears a bird and there is one, at first thought, well at first thought, it was just in his head, but a bird in a tree near them, answered by another in a tree across from it or one not too far away, same call, back and forth, cheep-cheep, cheep-cheep-cheep, and so on, like Morse, saying in code “We’re bell-like birds, knelling death.” Bellbirds, bell-bell-bell-birds. Grabs his ears, folds them over the holes and squashes them closed. It would be nice not to breathe now, not to breathe from now on in, just to instantly stop or disappear, right now and here the end, kaput for good. But Margo, his darling Margo, what would she do if he did and that sort of thing? Mein licht in heaven, huh? And Lee, for then there’d be two gone when she’d need him for Julie when that time comes, which it will, just wait. But Margo. Minor light in nacht, nicht in what, huh? Panic, her dead or disappeared dada stopped, run out into the driveway, under a car wheel, if one didn’t get her before that: all the way back to the highway to die. What’s he talking about? That plus the nicht what. She’d stay put but would never be the same. Hold her, stay, best thing, now you’re talking. But so fucking co, so co, can’t for the life of him stand it. And what’s there? Body all bare, blank and hollow and wet with icy sweat but why wipe it? besides: can’t. “Yes,” she’s saying, which he can hear now, her head bent to one side to show sympathy, and that sympathetic puss, one of her hands taking his which he shoves off. Don’t show, yes means death, show means no, co means what? can’t she see that? but “Yes, yes,” he says, hates them: give life, take life, work with their picks and drills on life, don’t be irrational, “that’s right, no,” since she seems to have answered something he seems to have said and in a way where he’d made sense, but what, he doesn’t know. “Yes, I’m afraid so,” she says, “I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how much. What in the world can be worse? Doctors know. We haven’t seen it all, believe me. We’re human beings first — mothers, fathers, just people. One doesn’t have to have children to understand. I wish — we all do — some of them were crying when they were trying to revive her — it could have been otherwise. How much we do, honestly, sir, Mr. Frey. I’d have given anything. We all would have. But she wasn’t breathing and her heart had stopped and rigidity was already setting in.” Tries closing her off by waving her away with both hands. Wants her to disappear. The whole scene to go except Margo, and Julie, of course, but hears her. “When she got here we couldn’t do a thing. There was no conceivable way as I mentioned before. She arrived in an exanimate, unresuscitable, deceased state and we couldn’t for anything get her around, what more can I say?” Nothing, none, thank you, he thinks, you’ve said everything inconceivable, go away. “Nothing, none, inconceivable,” he says, “I heard. Amazing, just amazing. I always thought kids were so strong and savable no matter what the obstacles, but of course up to a point. But that point way beyond our point and that they bounced back, like that, or sort of,” snapping his fingers or trying to but they don’t snap. She’s saying no, it’s not always the case, that “up to a point” he said, though their reviviscent and recuperative chances are usually enhanced because of their youth, but again up to a point. Then he says “Injuries, not obstacles, and I want the truth. This some kind of ruse? I’m — even my other daughter here — are we being tested for some reason in this way? No of course not, why would anyone? no rest or ruse. Seeing is believing, hey? Feeling is. You feel and her skin’s got the feel of slick dried leaves and things are hardening up in her limbs and there’s no beat and nothing brings anything back and the rest of it, her breath and brain waves, and that’s the reason for your belief? Well why not. Let’s not just think of the poor survivors. She was dead coming here, dead down that road and along the way, over the overpass, under the under-something, onto the ramp and across the bridge, that’s from an easy-reader book I used to read to her when she was even a littler kid and then she learned by heart and ended up reading on her own, under, over, by the, all prepositions I for some dumb reason only just realized, out of, into, down the path, between the rocks, along the lake, through the woods, up Spook Hill, probably the hardest words for a kid to comprehend the meaning of, wouldn’t you say, for what are they? Nouns name things, verbs are active, even adjectives have a little more life or something to them. No,” and inside: all a lie. This, that, everything about her today. She wasn’t in the car; yes she was. She’s home, sleeping peacefully, missed her flight. Huh? There are drawings of hers at home. Oh boy there are. She loved to draw. “I like art best,” she used to say, for years. As a very little kid always scribbling pictures and recently subscribing them with titles and dialog. “The owl flies away.” (“Daddy, how do you spell ‘flies’? Not the flies that are pests but the ones where something flies away?”) “Mommy, Daddy, Margo, me and the Iguana I want them to buy for me.” (“Does ‘guana’ start off with w or g? Do you think I drew him well? It’s from memory.”) “Leave! Get out!! Help!!!” the princess demanded. “Someone, save me!!!!” All over the place and he knows he’s going to worship them every time he stumbles on one which he’ll do a lot unless he junks his entire library, for he’s put them away in books and between them on bookshelves and in his work drawers at home and work. And what will he do when he finds one, which he’s sure to: tear it up or throw it away? And the framed ones above his desk at home and on the walls at work and the big one of Demeter and Persephone in the living room, tear them down and smash the frames and glass and dump them in someone else’s trash can or one of the ones in the men’s room? There are things to attend to, nothing he looks forward to, and suppose Lee wants things to be left as they are? “No,” he yells and Margo’s startled and sits up and grabs his arm and says “I think I heard what you were talking about before you screamed. I first heard it in my dreams, I think, or maybe I wasn’t, but I’ve been listening in and out of them a long time, so I know. We have to call Mommy, Dada, we have to. I need her around.” “You’re right, we have to, I’m not doing right by you or just what I should for you, soon. Because we can’t just stay here like this bawling and screaming and acting babbly forever. But it just happened, dear, not even an hour ago. I didn’t see the time then and I won’t look at my watch now; I don’t want to know even what time of the day around any of it took place, but do you really know what this all means?” “With Julie I do.” “It means that the worst possible thing that could ever happen, happened. No, it would’ve been worse if you had died too. And worse yet if Mommy had been in the car with us and she had died with the two of you. It wouldn’t have been worse if I had died with all of you. That would have been better. Then I wouldn’t know anything that happened, as I now do. It would, in fact, be better, if Julie died, that nobody died with her but me. Of course. But better yet, absolutely best of all, if somebody had to die in that car, though I don’t know why anyone would, that only I had, that’s true too. If only that had been the case. If only that could be made to be the case. How do we go about doing that? It would be bad for you all but not as bad as just Julie dying. Now that’s a tragedy. So in moments like this, can’t we all just crack up, or each to his own? Anyway,” to the doctor, “what happened is just about the worst thing that could ever possibly happen, don’t you agree with me?” “I’m sorry, sir, what? I didn’t quite catch all that or realize till late that you were talking to me.” He looks up at the sky. Hopes to see the bird from the tree again, cheeping. And then to sort of sweep down and pick him up some way and haul him off somewhere. In other words, death, to replace hers, a miracle, with him the most eager party to it, where she suddenly springs up wherever she now is and acts alive. No, doesn’t want to see anything in the sky, and doesn’t know why. No, hopes to see Julie in the tree but a little lower in it, waving at him. “Here I am, look at me, peekaboo, hide and seek, fooled you. It was a big trick, with the whole wide world in on it, even the two men on the road. They were actors. The gun was a phony. Mommy hired them. Don’t ask us why. We have no answers for we didn’t have a reason. Unless just having crazy fun and playing a joke on the old joker and maybe scaring him is one. Oh Daddy, I’m so sorry, did it upset you that much? We went too far. Margo, we’ll have to tell Mommy. Doctor — for she is a real doctor, Daddy — do you think he’ll be all right?” Keeps looking at the branches and leaves in the tree for some sign of her, then thinking if he thinks hard enough, and he’ll have to close his eyes for this, and does, clenched tight, maybe she’ll really appear in them. The power of something. He’s become a believer. By all that’s mighty and strong and so on, he means it. A great one, maybe never one better. He will give anything, he will do anything, his life, as he said, and how many are willing to give that? Well, for something like this, probably a lot, almost all fathers. Or just on the ground for her to appear, moving, even twitching. One little breath or twitch and he’ll pounce on her and save her, he swears it, he doesn’t know how but he will. Give him a chance. Give him this chance. Give her, give her, he means, just one, only one, and he also swears by everything he’s Yours. He opens his eyes on the tree. Nothing there and he’s not that surprised: too high for her to climb. Slowly moves his eyes downward to the walk on which they ran her in. “You should come inside with me,” the doctor says. Nothing’s where she was; place has been emptied and cleaned, even the stuff that must have fallen out of his car when they grabbed her away from him to put her on that cart. Few people around anywhere, even; thing’s over, other duties, next emergency or just to get the cart cleaned and equipment they used on Julie ready for one. “Margo and you both. There’s a bit of business to do, I’m afraid, which only you can take care of, or your daughter’s mother if she were here. Some signing, identification, nothing you’ll like. What kind of coverage you have, for instance. I only want to prepare you. After you see her she’ll be taken to the county medical examiner’s office, which by the nature of the crime she’s required to. After that you’ll have to arrange for a funeral home to pick her up from there, of whatever kind you want. But I’ll try to make everything as easy as can be for you here. We won’t be asking for organs or parts. We’re not that kind of facility for most of them and the ones we’re usually interested in were mostly lost and it’d be too big a strain on you and also our facilities for her to be brought back here. Incidentally, I’ve been told to tell you there are several state troopers and other police people who want to speak to you some more. They’re in the lobby and I’m sure by now are getting impatient and want to see you and inspect your car.” “Where is it? It’s not here and I don’t ever want to see it again, so good. But could you promise me, as one of the things you can do, to get rid of it for me? Sell it if you want, I’ll hand over my registration, and use the money for the hospital.” He sticks his hand into his back pants pocket for his wallet. “We can talk about that later, Mr. Frey.” “Margo, was there anything you wanted in the car before we give it away?” “I’d have to see.” “It’s possible they’re already looking at it,” the doctor says, “but someplace else so they wouldn’t have to do it in front of you and maybe they just needed better light. Judging from previous incidents here, they want to help and time’s of the essence if they’re to get your assailant. But give them only as much time as you wish. They understand what’s occurred and the effect on you both.” “Me? What’s to say? Two men, one drove, the other shot. I don’t know their faces anymore. It’s funny because that’s what I was just telling myself before. Blurs. In a car, I don’t know what kind and I’m not even sure if it wasn’t one of those small wagon-trucks, a pickup that you always see on the road, sometimes driven by guys in ties. One of them had a red one, and wide.” “It was a regular car,” Margo says, “no wagon, new and white.” “That’s right and I think what I already told them, no wagon and white, but you’re sure new?” “I don’t know.” “To me it looked recently washed and waxed. But what make and how many doors? These particulars are essential, dear, they’ll need to know for sure. Windows, though, one to stick a gun out of, the right one, if you’re standing behind the car and facing front, all the way rolled down. I told you I’m no good,” to the doctor. “I can tell you what his hands looked like — Mr. Killer. The fingernails were bitten down — but not the face, though he had big teeth, or at least that’s what it seemed. I might be imagining that part of the horror. I see my youngest daughter’s not around the area any longer, just like my car, any reason for that? Everything’s getting lost. Today’s minute is not tomorrow’s, and so on.” “Excuse me, sir?” “May I please see her? This is important. I want to see her before she completely deteriorates.” Glances at Margo, no reaction to what he just said, she’s staring at her arm and pulling up the shirtsleeve. “Daddy, there’s a bad bloodstain here. Lots of them, little and big, and some on my pants. I don’t want to wear them.” “I know, it’s okay, we’ll wash them out later and change soon as we can.” “There’s clothes in the suitcase.” “It’s in the car; we can’t get it now. Please, dear.” “But if we wash out these clothes, they’ll be wet. I can’t wear wet clothes.” “Please, dear.” And to the doctor: “If there is something you can use of hers — Julie — sure, go on, take, why not? I’m talking about parts. I even like the idea that something of hers is walking around on or in someone else, and not clothes. Oh, that’s an old thought, thousands must have had it. You look in someone’s eyes — I’m being extreme now — and see your wife’s corneas, when of course you couldn’t. But what would you do — what would I if it was Julie’s and I somehow knew — swoon? Ask that person to come home with us and put her up in Julie’s room? Would I tell bedtime stories to just that person’s eyes? The person could say, to make this possibility more plausible, that she got them from such and such hospital on such a day, today, and even give the donor’s name. I in fact could first say, after meeting this person at a party, for example, what beautiful or more likely just clear eyes she has for someone her age, and that’s when she could say ‘Well, some of it isn’t mine.’ But the hospital probably covers up records like that for insurance purposes or something else — to avoid the lunatic reactions I just gave, taking that person home for her eyes — and corneas don’t have to be immediately transplanted to someone else, but you know what I mean.” Hears Margo crying, he went too far, and puts his arms around her head and presses her into him and says “I’m sorry, dear, so sorry. Is it still the bloodstains?” “No.” “So, I’m getting carried away, I know, forgive me, but what can we expect? This is what happens. If it happens to you, let it — shriek, crazy, cry — it’s probably good. To us both, I don’t know, let them straitjacket us. No, I’ll come down, you go ahead, and I’ll take care of you, I swear. But something else,” to the doctor. “I’d like a phone and a private room to call from, if you have one.” “For Mommy?” Margo says. “Oh, I don’t know if I really want one. And we have time, dear, don’t we?” to Margo. “Why rush her? She may just be sitting down now for dinner. Wouldn’t that be nice if all were right. But we have to think about this hard. You and I and our brains and some advisors, like this doctor and maybe the police. They’ve been in situations like this or close to it and will know what to do and how to, what’s the best time and so on. But I don’t know if she has to know, ever. Really. No, that can’t be. But why go so fast and how could we do it? Not when she just goes to sleep, not when she just gets up, and she’ll call tonight if we don’t, so we’ll have to tell her then if we don’t before and we’re home, and think up what and how and words and then words after we tell her if they’re needed. Can’t just be on the phone, can we? Better she see it on our faces first, faces only, and then together we can all just die. But then how do we get there, and by the time we do you’ll be asleep and she might be too, which could be good, and we’re not going to wake her up, or I won’t, because you’ll be asleep. No, nothing will work and I’m in no shape to speak or help and don’t know when I’ll ever be and I don’t want anyone else doing it for me but me. She’ll need someone there when she hears. She has your grandparents but someone like me, I think, around, when we tell her, when we do. Or just I will, of course, but you beside me, if you don’t mind.” “I don’t.” “You don’t mind, dear — you’d do it?” “It’s not what I want but I will if you want me and it helps and to stay near you.” “Good, what a doll you are. But here I am, still doing nothing much good for you, isn’t that true? It’s awful,” and kisses her hand and heads inside holding it. “I’m going the right way, aren’t I?” to the doctor as the first automatic door opens. “Though I don’t know for what. My stomach’s shriveling. Am I going in here to see her? She’s in here, just wasn’t a guess, right?” and the doctor nods, looks at her watch, says “If you could give us twenty minutes more, sir, I’ll take you to her. Meanwhile, I’ve asked for the priest, who usually makes his rounds about now, to come down here, and also the resident psychiatrist, just in case you need them.” “Religion, the mind, what about a general?” “I don’t understand.” “I’m not sure myself. What did I say? Something about war. Alluding to it, though I don’t see where. Law of the jungle? Maybe I just meant law, and instead of a general I meant a judge. No, that can’t be: mind, religion, law or war.” “Daddy, please stop it. You’re making things worse.” “But why can’t I go right now to see my younger one, Julie?” he says to the doctor. “What’re you doing to her?” “Don’t you want to continue, Mr. Frey?” for they’ve stopped in the entryway between the doors. “I only want to just touch her when she’s not — you know…” “It’s your privilege, I’m talking about seeing her, if you want to do that now.” “I do. And whatever you want to do, Margo.” “No, sir, I don’t think it’s a good idea for the girl,” the doctor says, “at least not now.” “Then I won’t,” Margo says. “If you don’t,” he says to her, “maybe then I shouldn’t too. I don’t know what to do. And there’s so much to. I think I should stay with you, for your sake and mine.” “Give us the twenty minutes or even a bit more,” the doctor says. “Then maybe decision-making will come a little easier, and there are the police who want to see you right away.” “I don’t know. What am I going to do about my wife? That’s something I’ll never be able to know, though I know I’ll have to do something.” “As you said before, you have time to think about it and decide, and I and several other people on the staff will be more than glad to assist you.”
He’s supposed to say that’s nice, thanks? Can’t say anything. As they pass through the second automatic door police get out of seats in the waiting area and go to them. In uniform, out of, different colors, beige, blue, maybe some from some city, others troopers, starched bright white shirts and dark ties, union or feder ation pins in their lapels, anyway, some fellowship or order, but all officials or police official-like-looking, even those in plainclothes, and two take their hats off and hold them at their sides. Respect, he thinks, I don’t want it. Give me back Julie; take all the other shit and jam it. He says “Police, police, where were you? I know you tried speaking to me outside but I’m talking about way before when I was looking all over, this is my other daughter, for miles on the highway while we were being stalked by those two dogs. If you had been there and I had pulled over to you, which I would’ve risked our lives doing across the road for I almost knew they would shoot, what a break it would’ve been if I’d’ve made it. Everything now would be the opposite. We wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be with us, she wouldn’t be there,” pointing past them to double doors some hospital people are going in and out of, “no coroner would be waiting. It’s amazing, beyond the beyond and into the unthinkable.” “Daddy,” Margo says. He squeezes her hand. “It’s all right, sweetie, they understand my rant and anger, for what was I saying?” “We do,” a uniformed man says, brass on his shoulders like an army captain, “and we’re extremely sorry, sir, young lady, for everything, and especially your youngest. She is that? You have others?” “No. By three. Listen, I’m in no condition.” People around when they walked in, now, maybe waiting for treatment, others their relatives or friends with them, or just waiting for others inside undergoing treatment, through those doors he saw, looked at him and Margo, look now. He looked at them then, glimpsed, glanced, they stared, looked sad, word had passed fast, then looked away. Doesn’t want to see what they’re seeing. Sympathy, wants none of it. Give back Julie, stash all the other shit. It doesn’t mean or help anything, though people got to react to something like this; or it works for most people, words, gestures, hand on the back he’s getting now from the captain, but not him. Shuts his eyes. So they see him crying. This big hand lifts him up and sits him in a tree. Trees again, but she’s not in it with him, and no birds. Tries to make her appear but can’t. Is this what he’s going to do rest of his life? He’s worthless in every respect now, will be for years. Then a voice but it’s somebody saying something from outside his eyes, he thinks to him, but doesn’t hear what? Not Margo’s, it’s deep. Then he’s back on land and this big hand, maybe the same, lifts him through the hospital roof into space. Stars shoot by but no shots. Lots of police around, so of course not. He reaches down to pick up Margo, other hand up to reach Julie, good thing for years he hasn’t lessened his stretches and push-ups, together when he gets them he’ll carry them in his arms to any place but down there. He has Margo and Julie’s saying “Only two more inches, Daddy, two more,” when it all stops, freezes, blanks. Tries to bring it back but can’t. Squeezing his eyes tight as he can doesn’t work. What other tricks could he use? Be nice to be a Bible reader and have that faith. For other than seeing to Margo now he’d just pore and pore. The answers to how to tell his wife and when might be in it, capital I? chapter two, patriarch three. His wife too, he’d hope, a Bible reader and quasi-religious zealot; then their madness would be justified or rerouted or decontaminated or whatever the word, none of those but on their knees, and things might begin to look good or just pick up. “Nathan?” and he opens his eyes, heard that, a man’s, the captain. “Nathan, listen, we’re losing a lot of valuable time. We sympathized, outside, that you weren’t in terrific shape, but now—” “I gave info outside?” “Not enough of it, which is why we stayed. You mentioned two men and we want to get these guys, for you, for everybody.” “What’d I say?” “You said too little. Car and a gun and these men and a red tie. Most was mumbled. Let’s face it, you were incoherent. We can respond to that, then. But now—” “Look, I can’t see or talk to anyone now. My kid’s just been killed. Maybe to you an hour ago isn’t ‘just being killed.’ But to me it’s just, just; in an hour it’ll be just, just. In three hours, four, tomorrow, next days. I’m a nut case from it, so what could I possibly do for you — I’m sorry, Margo,” patting her hand; “I won’t be this way forever. But one of you be nice and get me a Bible?” he says to the police. “You’d like a Bible?” the doctor says. “We have a priest here, he’s supposed to be down any moment, I don’t know what’s delaying him, but any particular kind? I believe we have the King James, Good News, Holy Scriptures if that’s what the Jewish one is called, the one without the end.” “I don’t want a priest. I don’t read those things except for the poetry and plots, which I haven’t for years and aren’t interested in now. But say, wouldn’t it be great if I was. If I just had time, as at home, you know, my two kids finished with their dinner, reading their own books or playing quietly with each other — loudly, savagely, anything, for after a while I’d know how to tone them down and bring them around — and I got out the house Bible, glass of wine by my side on the arm of my armchair, Tanakh, whatever that means, once looked it up but it wasn’t there and I’ve a good dictionary, and red, and just turned to some of my favorite stuff in it or what I remember was, not the brutal, revengeful parts of God’s or the Israelites, Solomon, songs of his or was it Ezra’s or Samuel’s? Saul hunting down David in the cave and that spider, Joseph when he sees his father again after so many years, if Joseph wasn’t the father and it was his son who saw him after so long, something about Ruth, search for a couple of proverbs and psalms that once struck me but will be hard to find. See how bad I am at it? but wouldn’t that be a scene. And then I’d call my wife and wouldn’t have any trouble how or when. ‘Dearest dear, miss you. Kids are fine and fed and asleep, what a relief.’” “Daddy, you’re talking that way again, I’m sorry,” Margo says. “Am I? I am. It’s embarrassing you?” “It’s not that so much. But these people are wanting to speak to you and I can tell by some things that they’re just being nice in waiting.” “Okay, I’ll stop. I’ll try.” “Please, Nathan, down this hall, if you would,” the captain says, extending his arm, doing something like a head-waiter or restaurant hostess, table this way, sir, miss, nonsmoking, an upside-down wave, to show where he wants them to go, of course. Hey, I’m beginning to catch on to things, he thinks; I’m not so bad off as before. Maybe a help, maybe a hindrance. “Maybe we should follow,” to Margo, “what do you say? Give them what they want in a few minutes and then we can be alone to forgive and forget, I mean to figure out what I now can’t, like what to say to Mommy, like I must see poor Julie.” Starts crying, someone has his arm, it’s that damn word poor, he thinks, Margo the hand of his other arm, doesn’t want to look at her, she’ll start crying if she isn’t, down the hall, through doors, up Spook Hill, left, right, left, right, cadence count, another hall, and what’s with this ‘cadence count’? he was never in the army, will he ever find his way out of here if he has to make a dash? Has to pee, badly, he thinks when he sees a sign on a door Men, and says “Do you have to go to the bathroom, sweetheart? We probably should while we have the chance.” “I’m okay.” “Go, sweetheart, so you won’t have to later, that’s what I’m going to do.” “If I have to later, I will, Daddy. Please don’t force me.” “I’m sorry, but why not go now? Later, I don’t know, there might not be — we could — anything — stuck in some room, but do what you want.” “Okay, I’ll go if it means that much to you, and also to wash my face from crying.” “Me too.” A policewoman goes in with her, ladies’ room next to the men’s. An officer follows him in. “I don’t need company or assistance.” “You’re not the only one who’s got to piss,” the officer says. “Of course,” and he does, officer beside him pissing. “I used to say, though I don’t know why because I was never in the service, that as they say in the infantry, you never want to pass up a latrine. Maybe they said it because of the long marches with no breaks, or sudden sentry duty or something where you couldn’t budge from your post for several hours straight. I don’t know why I brought it up. Of course, all those uniforms.” “I was in four goddamn years and I never heard that line, but I get it,” the officer says. First piss since Julie was killed, he thinks, looking at the tile wall in front of him, smelling his or the officer’s piss. Maybe both, a real stink. And is it the first piss? Yes. First time too looking at a tile wall and smelling piss since she was killed. That’s not true. Thinks he smelled her when he held her, piss and shit. So no doubt lots of firsts. First night to come, day to go, evening breezes, but not thoughts of poetry, without her. First time he stopped at a hospital in this state. First time he stopped anywhere around here with them that wasn’t connected to the Interstate. First time shaking his prick after a piss, shoving it back in, feeling a few drops on his thigh, zippering down, up, flushing a toilet, and he flushes. First time flushing one twice, and he flushes. First time this, that, what other thing? Doesn’t want to look into the urinal as a first. Look at it! Ugly. No butts, but always ugly. Life is ugly, pissing is, shitting, butts, men’s rooms, the works. Throwing up. When will be the first time he does that since? Maybe when he next sees her. What hands have touched the handle of this urinal? Why think of it, where’d it come from, and why’d he think he had to look? Crazy, man, I’m crazy. Why not stick your prick in it, your face, nose, lick it? And if you wash your hands after touching the handle, what’s the problem? though wash them well. Hasn’t washed anything since she was killed, and looks at them. “You all right?” the policeman says from the sinks. “Yeah, fine, just thinking. I’ll be over. Everything’s going slow.” Blood on a shirtsleeve, blood on the other, what seems like blood on a few nails. So, blood on his hands or close, and probably if he looked close, blood on those. Oh that’s rich, rich. Doesn’t want to think of it, hers of all bloods. But maybe later he’ll cut out a piece of the sleeve of it, put it in a little plastic box, carry it around with him for whenever he wants to look at it, or just leave it on his night table, kiss it or the box before he goes to sleep. He’d do it. The box, for the blood might run. Anyway, has to remember to cut out part of the sleeve, maybe two pieces in case he loses one. Maybe three pieces if there are three, and so on, though has to be some cutoff point. Sees her face, down on the car floor, sleeping, oh my darling, and shoves his fists into his sockets and grinds hard. Stars instead. “You still all right?” and he says “Sure, sure, just thinking.” “How about if you stop for now so we can get out of here and do our business?” “In a sec. Sometimes pissing comes hard for me.” There was a joke. Should he tell it to him? He’ll think he’s stupid and nuts, coming here and now. Good, inject him, put him away, keep his mind off it forever, and he won’t have to call. Something about after a woman kisses the narrator’s lips he says he’s not going to wash them for a week. Or was it the cheek? And was it something his father used to occasionally say to him when he was a kid and kissed his cheek? So just an affectionate remark, not a joke. But how does it relate? Well, to the blood. If Julie kissed his lips now and that was it, last kiss, he wouldn’t wash them for a week. Whenever, a month, a year, but probably his cheek, and he’d stay out of the rain and wouldn’t swim and so forth. But he’d have to shave, wouldn’t he? and if he didn’t the spot would be covered and he’d forget where it was. Don’t be silly. But when did she kiss him last? That’s an earnest question. He knows she came into his in-laws’ living room this morning when he was reading the paper and having coffee, but did she kiss him or he her? Is there a difference? She’d just got out of bed, first one up after him, and he was disappointed when she came in for he wanted to read some more and have another cup, had pajamas on, the orange-and-yellow-striped ones, bare feet, because soon after that Lee said “Get some socks on.” No: “Please get your socks on, Julie, there’s a draft.” Her little feet. He liked to grab one around the arch and squeeze it, can feel it in his hand now. Forgets what socks she had on when she came back in. And she must have seen how he felt when she first came into the room, for she said “I’m sorry,” and he said “For what?” though he knew and felt lousy about it right after. Isn’t it strange, what could be more odd? when he thinks what later happened to her. Why, if she came into the room now, it was morning, he was reading and having coffee, same place or any place and he wanted to continue to read in peace, he’d put down the paper, make sure the coffee was out of the way so it wouldn’t spill on her, and hold out his arms and say “Good morning, my dearest, how lovely to see you so bright and early and you so beautiful, or you so bright and early and everything so beautiful, because everything’s so bright and early which makes everything so beautiful, but you know how Daddy likes to go on,” and so on. Anyway, not the white socks she had on in the car, for this morning’s were last night’s and would have been put in the dirty laundry bag he threw into the car trunk. He knows he kissed her goodnight several times last night, never just one kiss for his kids unless he’s sick with a possible contagious illness, so she must have kissed him, for they both always do except when they’re angry at him or they’ve suddenly fallen asleep when he’s talking or reading to them, let’s say, and neither of those happened last night. He pictures it: she’s holding out her arms from bed, is on her back, room’s dark, he leans over her and she says, this is almost exactly what she said, “Me want hug, no go sleep without hug, won’t stop baby talk which you hate without hug,” and he let her hug him and he put his cheek against hers, she said “You scratch,” and he said “I only shave in the morning,” and she said “How does it work then? — the shave-hairs only grow at night like people?” and he said “Too complicated a subject to go into now, I’ll tell you at breakfast, now go to sleep,” and he probably kissed the air beside her ear or even her ear, forgets. Then she released him and grabbed his wrists and said, and this is almost exactly what she said, he just knows it, “Now you’re handcuffed and can’t get out unless I let you.” He has to remember this. It was the last night; has to, and he’ll write it down at the sink if he didn’t leave his pen in the car and if the policeman asks what he’s writing, he’ll show him. He said okay and sat on her bed. Margo was saying “Now me, my turn for goodnight,” and he said “I’m coming, sweetie,” and Julie said “He can’t go because I have him in handcuffs and he can’t get out of them for all of tonight,” and he said “You mean I have to sleep here?” and stayed there another minute, maybe he was finding it relaxing, resting in the dark with his eyes closed and her hands around his wrists, and she said, maybe she was tired now and wanted to get it over with so she could go to sleep, “I bet you can’t get out if you really tried,” and he said “Bet I can,” and pretended to wrench free. She was laughing, he liked it that she was enjoying him but he also had Margo to say goodnight to now and she’d probably want equal time, so he pretended to wrench some more, gritting his teeth and making straining noises and arching back as if he were trying to pull free and then pushed her hands till they couldn’t go any farther over his fists and her grip snapped. “Goodnight, darling, no more noise,” and quickly kissed her forehead. “More, more,” reaching for his wrists but staying flat in bed and he said no and sat on Margo’s bed and let her hug him, kissed the air or her ear, she grabbed his wrists and said “You’re locked forever,” Julie said “Copycat,” and Margo said “No way, J. I did the lock-forever trick, but around Daddy’s neck mostly, long before you were even born,” and he said “It’s sort of true, Julie, though maybe not that long before and maybe even a bit after, though nobody can pattern it,” and she said “What’s pattern?” and he broke Margo’s grip the same way and said “No definitions, no more delays, goodnight, all,” and left the room. “Don’t forget to keep the light on in the bathroom outside” were Julie’s last words. What were her last words today? Can’t think of them. This is important. Tries harder to, eyes squeezed tight, nothing comes. But did she kiss him, can he picture her kissing him last night? Must have, on the lips and cheek, one after the other which is how she usually did it, cheek first, then the lips, sometimes both cheeks, oh so French without knowing it — no, he’s told her: “Whoo-whoo, so Frenchie,” and then having to explain it — Margo just a lip peck. But the door handle going out, he thinks at the sink. Lots of people don’t wash after they shit and pee. Policeman’s right beside him, looking at himself in the mirror but probably at him. Half, he bets, and what did he once say he discovered about toilet seats in public restrooms and even in his home with guests — say to whom? to his wife — maybe ninety percent of them by men are left up. Which might mean ninety-five percent by men who just pee standing up, since he has to account for those who sit down to shit and pee. And first time washing his hands anywhere since, but he thought that. Then turning cold water on, any water on, splashing some on his face, taking his glasses off first to wash them and splash his face. Is it the first time he’s taken his glasses off since? No, lots. Also, pulling a paper towel out of the dispenser, drying the glasses and then another towel out for his face, but not the first time looking at himself in a mirror, though certainly this mirror or a bathroom mirror. Did that, just the mirror, when he was looking in the rearview at them on the highway when she was alive. Thinks he saw her, maybe he didn’t. Right after he told them to duck. No, they were down then, so last time he saw her alive was in a mirror sometime before when it was all innocent, driving on a road, no worries about maniacs in nearby cars, and they were playing, he thinks: cards, smaller magnetic board versions of checkers and Clue, or a mind one with their own rules, or just into their books. Books are now in back of the car, probably a fucking red, unless the police took them away to inspect them. Some outdoor clothes, dolls and their clothes for the outdoors, car and bed, stuffed animals for tonight, those little things Julie always brings with her for the car trip, tiny dinosaurs, miniature rabbits and cats, markers and a memo pad to draw and write on and small balls from the Giant store vending machine for a dime each and her lucky polished stone and magic necklace, also a red mess on the seat and floor unless the police took most of these too. Pieces of her flesh, did he think of that? embedded in the car seat perhaps or just lying around or stuck to the car’s walls. Oh dear, oh God, oh my darling, why you? why you? it’s not so, it can’t be true. If he found a piece would he cut it out of the seat with part of the cloth it’s in or on, somehow get some substance to preserve it and seal it to the cloth, stain it with colorless shellac perhaps and put it in a plastic box and set it on his night table or desk? Doesn’t think so. For some reason her blood on a cut-out piece of his sleeve doesn’t seem so bad, but the other would be gruesome and too sad. And her little shoulder bag, he forgot, that holds all those little things she brings for the trip and which she empties out almost first thing on the seat between Margo and her. But all those firsts, each breath another first added to the next, every goddamn step, new rooms, familiar corridors and stalls, first piss after the last one and so on, first fart, belch, what’ll be his first cup of coffee sometime when and no doubt pretty soon, first shot of scotch, beer, slice of toast, he’s got to eat and drink, doesn’t he? and certainly get drunk and sick and drunk until he stops, first glass of water and hangover, old and new people he’ll see, friends, family, first piece of meat, first celery, carrot, aspirin, aspirins after that aspirin, will he still take his daily brewer’s yeast tablets and vitamin C? first tranquilizer he’s ever taken, also first sleeping pill and doctor’s exam, first tooth worked on or just a simple cleaning and checkup, will he do it when the reminder card comes he addressed at the dentist’s months ago? will he also do the funeral which’ll be the first sharing of grief like that for his wife and him? first mail, first time he opens something from their mail, first time he listens to music again or will that be at the funeral if he has nothing to do with it or if he just mechanically turns on the car radio? first time again behind a wheel, seated at a typewriter, shopping in a supermarket, looking for a coffin and choosing a funeral home if there’s to be one, there has to be to retrieve her from wherever she goes after here, first coffin he chose was for his father, first walk out of his house if there’s to be one, no he means first walk out after he first comes back, first time he’ll speak to his wife since, first time he’ll see her since, first time both of them break down or crack up together like they’re sure, at least the first one, to do, first time sleeping with her and so forth, no more good sleeps, no more sex, pleasure, amusement of any kind and so on, first time he sweeps the kitchen floor, does the family wash, on his knees cleaning the toilet pedestal, first time he squashes an ant with his thumb, gets enraged at seeing another one on the kitchen counter and smashes it with the side of his fist. Margo’s birthday and their anniversary and so on. Days Julie’s come up. Shouldn’t they get away, maybe leave the country, take Margo with them but go if only for those times, but where can they? In a hole, on a transoceanic ship, but he’d probably feel like jumping off. First time he sharpens a pencil or fills a pen. And what if he comes across the safe scissors she told him yesterday she lost at home and needs tomorrow for school? School, what does he do, simply call or drop in and say she’s not coming in anymore, she’s dead? Same with her after-school ceramics class and what if the teacher wants to give him the things Julie made that were baked in a kiln last week and were supposed to be distributed this? But when will he stop thinking about it and let the subject rest? First things first but he thinks never. He’ll look at Margo; they looked something alike. He’ll look at his wife; Julie resembled her much more than she did him. Photos of his wife and her at four and five and six and you can’t tell one from the other except for the setting and certain clothes. He’ll look in the mirror and perhaps see the little there was of her in him, the narrow eyes, big lobes, somewhat pointed chin. First little girl tossing up a ball the way Julie did or learning to rollerskate, which he’d been helping her do with Margo. Piano. She just started to learn, so first kid’s lesson-playing he’ll hear out of someone’s window or if he goes to a friend’s house where there’s a girl or even a boy around that age who plays that way or just uses the same series of lesson books. First time he sees their piano, even. First time after that time and every time after that and so on. Will he move the piano out? Then every time he sees a piano or space where the piano was in their house or hears one played even by a pro and even on radio, record or tape. It’s possible. It could happen. Fathers who cross the street holding their kids’ hands, every single one. Any kid, any age, either sex, mothers and nannies too. It’s what he always liked but she didn’t always like to do. “You’re too young to cross the street by yourself,” and what would she say? He forgets. “I know what to do. I’ve watched how. I’m old enough. I’m five. I’m six.” “Okay, now that you’re almost seven, and maybe I have been too protective, look both ways, then look again, then make sure nobody’s in the parked cars and just about to pull out, and even if you hear a car coming but don’t see it”—this just last week—“don’t go, wait till it passes or till you don’t hear it, even if that takes a few minutes, then look both ways again and at the parked cars, and only the not-too-traveled street in front of our house and when Mommy or I am looking, or the one by the school with the crossing guard.” Home, her room, all the rooms, bathroom where she washed up and brushed her teeth before going to sleep. He was thinking about firsts before but now he’s talking about everything. His clothes which she’s seen, every plate and cup and such in the house, all the furniture, carpeted floors, woodpile on the porch, streets she’s been on with him and so forth. Jungle Jim he erected and put in with hundreds of pounds of cement, how’s he going to take that out? Neighborhood trees they’ve passed and huge one in the backyard she’s run around. Sky where he’s often pointed out to her a cloud. What’s he talking about? Wash your face, put soap in your mouth. Bang your head against the mirror till it breaks or you’re knocked out. “By the way — excuse me, sir, Mr. Frey,” the policeman says. “But by the way, I never said it so far but I couldn’t be sorrier over what happened to you and your family and I know I’m talking for every law officer in the county and state.” “Yeah, yeah,” looking in the sink. Somebody else’s black hair there, he hates it, why didn’t the guy pick it up and get rid of it or wash it away before he left? “If there was anything we could do, but what possibly could we? But we’d do it in a flash, without question, but even apprehending the rotten fuckers and executing them by injection, what’s it in the end mean as help? Damn, it’s the pits. There’s no comeback from it. I put myself in your position each time.” “You mean,” not looking at him; turning the cold water on and with his finger pressed to the spout spraying the hair to the drain and then down it. “You’re saying, killing a kid like this, it’s happened with others and maybe in the same way?” Turns off the water, looks down the drain, doesn’t see the hair but lets the water run some more to get it all the way to the sewer, or to the river and then the ocean or wherever it winds up but away from here. “Jesus,” to the man’s reflection in the mirror, “just saying it I feel like I’m being killed myself right here. But I suppose I shouldn’t think we’re the first. She is. I am. We all are. Ah, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.” There are other hairs in the sink; just noticed them. How corne he didn’t before and how’d they escape the spray? Gray, that’s why, two of them, and one white, so they blended in, plus five or six little black nappy ones which probably have a way of sticking to the porcelain more than what might be the lighter straight ones, but he’s not going to do anything about them. To get all the hairs in all the sinks he sees into the ocean or wherever they go from here, something he never thought of before, and all the sinks he sees into the seas he could see, the shining sinks and shrinking stinks and seas he could mean, though he doesn’t know how, well — well what? He’s lost his train. He’s lost it all. Oh, don’t get so self-pitying, please. And why not get that? And the objective, not the correlative — for he doesn’t know what’s a correlative, it’s just a word he’s heard in attachment to that — would be absurd, wouldn’t it? sinking all the hairs in all the sinks, sort of like going around flushing all the toilets in the world that need to be flushed. Slobs don’t. Absolute slobs. Who let their shit and stuff stay there to swim and stink so the next stiff can see it and wonder about seas and shifting sinks, though they don’t do it for that reason he doesn’t think. They do it because they’re egotists. “I’ve actually seen only one child killed,” the policeman says, who’s actually been talking about that or its correlative for a minute perhaps but he hasn’t heard him till now or not words or not exact. “Oh yeah?” still to the mirror but the policeman to him. I want to get out of here, he thinks. I want to get home with my kids. That’s absolutely what I want, out of this pool of siss, no small thing. “By a bullet, crossfire, druggies shooting up each other over some territory dispute from across a street.” “Druggies, that’s what they were or could have been. Of course,” slapping his head. “What are you saying, something essential you only now remembered about them?” taking out a pen and pad. “No, I don’t know. But who else could kill kids like that but them? They’re out of it. Mind a freaking forest. They’ve lost consciousness or conscience or both or something like that. They’re egotists, aren’t they? — people who kill people like that. And kids, imagine. Even if you’re aiming at me, to know kids are behind. Their lives over them. Meaning, that they think they can, it might even be their right, that someone else’s life is so much shit to them and that they can go on, laughing, even joking about it. ‘Hey,’” nudging the policeman’s arm with his elbow and looking directly at him, “‘we just blew those two halfpints away, what a gas.’ ‘Halfpints.’ That’s from Wilder, once the older girl’s favorite, never hers though she tried, always wanting to catch up. Or they’re just not thinking of it anymore, those men. Imagine. Who else but egotists, drugged out or straight, that’s who killed her.” “You’d be able to recognize them?” “I don’t know. Men, around my age or younger. My dead kid — shouldn’t I go to her?” “You’ve time. I don’t think they’re ready for you yet.” “What’re they doing?” “Still examining, cleaning, other things, probably — I’m not a doc.” “What’re they, pulling out pieces from her, putting them back? I didn’t give permission.” “Nothing like that. That’s for the medical examiner’s office across the ridge.” “How could they, not the examiners, but those men? And the alive one, Margo — she must miss me now too.” “She’ll be okay. We’re taking real especial care of her, treating her royally. We’re always prepared for something like this, if usually it’s normal car accidents. But those men — around your age, you say?” “You got me. All I can see of their faces is laughing, and the only thing of that is wide grins.” “Laughing, huh — when they drove away? I got to hear this. This really makes me burn.” “Well, they could have, but I didn’t see them do that when the guy in the passenger seat shot at us, for by then they were hundreds of feet ahead. But they laughed when they were alongside us. Druggies, who else but them — like the ones who killed the kid you saw. Maybe even the same ones. You should check on that. Did you catch those guys? You’ve pictures and a file on them?” “If we did you’d be able to identify them?” “Right now I can’t even remember what color they were. Of course I’m not really trying. But white, black, a mix, maybe, but definitely not Oriental, but I shouldn’t be so sure on that.” The policeman’s writing this down. “See? it’s a blur. Or maybe I’m all wrong and one was one and the other one of the others. But druggies I’m almost sure of, just by the crazy wildness in their eyes, or the one who aimed the gun, and the driver going on hysterically as if this, this scaring the shit out of me and my kids, was the funniest thing there ever was.” “Actually, by calling my men druggies I’m possibly giving them a better name than they deserve. Sellers, who ought to have their eyes gouged through. Monsters, when one of them shot her, or maybe two of them did — right, two different-caliber bullets in her from both sides of the street. Though that they shoot up each other, great, for lowers all our tax rates.” “How do you mean?” “From execution, incarceration, hundreds of thousands of dollars per prisoner for the last one — it’s the public that pays. But this poor kid got caught in, is how. Same age as yours around, though actually it was a boy. Yours was what, eight?” “Six.” “Six, my goodness. But the same, correct? Six, sixteen, twenty-six, even thirty-six — who cares, to the parents, if they’re good kids and they’re yours. If they’re the sellers and gunmen though, you want them dead and I’m sure the parents do too, for they’re just a plain nuisance, often stealing you blind, shaming your home. And I didn’t see this other kid get hit, just after, which was bad enough. What a nice-looking boy. I don’t have kids myself but what it must do to you. I’m, as you see, a police officer, no problem with that. I like my job and I’ve been doing it well for almost ten years. But I know what I’d do to the monsters who did it to my kid if I had one and one ever did. If we caught them. And I’d work my ass off at catching them. I’d, well, they wouldn’t live long if it was up to me. Worst beasts there are. And I wouldn’t care — I shouldn’t be saying this and I’m not trying to give you ideas, but I’d ruin everything I’ve worked for, in fact ruin my whole life and throw away any chances of getting married soon, which in time I want to do — well, I’d be married, if I had a kid, I’m not one of that set, so that doesn’t figure — but to get even and one above with them. I’d probably gun them down — both of them — that’s getting ‘one above’: two for one, the hyena who drove, as well as the actual killer. Though in something like this you can never get even, never — but right in the station house I’d even do it if they were, and I knew it down to my teeth, the killers of my kid and I felt this was the last or best chance I’d have of getting them anywhere. And in the head, both of them, smack in the gray matter — I’d see to that so they wouldn’t live and if they did it’d be as all-out cripples. But with me — I target-shoot twice a week at our armory — there’d be slim chance they’d be anything but dead.” “I understand. I’d probably do that too, for my little one, if I had a gun and knew how to use it and had the chance to. But tell me. This has nothing to do with what you were saying, but you’ve been straight with me so maybe you know something about this. How would you phone your wife, if you had one, that your kid’s just been killed? I haven’t done it yet and it’s killing me to know how and when and even what words to use and just what’s the right thing.” “I’d have to think about it.” “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have asked.” “No, let me. We’ve been instructed on this so maybe I’ll have for you some guidelines or an even better idea.” The man shuts his eyes, puts his head back and his hand on his forehead, seems to be thinking hard. “Really, it’s okay, forget it, I said. I’ll find a way how.” “No, it’s coming to me. All right, I know,” opening his eyes. “They tell us”—Nat covers his eyes, doesn’t want to hear—“to advise you one thing, which is to wait till morning if the murder or car accident where someone’s killed is in the nighttime, and not to do it anytime when you’re overcome. If you have to do it then, for some reason — like you got to reach her at the airport right away before she flies to Germany or France, and you’re way too overcome — then to get someone to do it for you, but no total stranger. A police officer who’s a stranger would be okay, but one who identifies himself to her as such. Or if there’s a doctor around to do it, and again the identity—‘Hello, I’m Dr. So-and-So at such and such hospital’—this one — even better, because he can explain all the medical things involved in it and also why you’re too overcome to tell her the news yourself, for you know she’s going to ask why you’re not there. Now if it’s by phone you’re telling her and you’re reasonably together with your self and calm, to make sure, by calling close friends and relatives before, that she has a barrage of support like that around her when you call — and this is to mothers and fathers and husbands and wives, if let’s say the husband dies, and the like. Well, I don’t know what else there could be. Children, about their moms and dads getting killed. Or their sisters and brothers and so on. Fiancés. But I’ll tell you also what I’d personally do. Of course my wife, the one I hope to get and will when I get her, might not be like yours. She might be stronger for something like this, maybe even a police officer herself, but then again, maybe yours is a rock.” Takes his hands from his face. “She isn’t. She’s normal, not hardened. Even if she was, it’s her kid, so she’ll suffer, just as I’m sure a police officer woman whose kid died and she suddenly learned of it, would suffer, whether she loves it or not.” “Maybe. No matter what, unless she falls apart at everything, which you’re not saying she does, and by shaking your head now I don’t think you’re saying. So I’d say to call, and when she answers, and since she doesn’t know how things are she’s saying how are things and such with you and the kids, I’d say ‘Honey, hold on to yourself. I’m about to tell you the worst news you’ll ever hear. Our daughter’s been killed.’ What’s her name?” “No, that can’t be the way.” “What’s her name though?” “Who?” “Your daughter.” “Julie, I don’t want to say it, but that.” “‘Julie’s been shot, killed, murdered, it’s a nightmare to me. I’m half insane over it, absolutely out of my mind, hurting like nobody, feeling I want to kill myself. I didn’t know how to tell you but I knew you should know soon as I could tell you, so I’m telling you this way. Forgive me a hundred times for it. For telling you. Monsters did it. Monsters in another car on the highway. I’m with the police in the hospital now. I was told not to tell you this way, to sort of do it some way else for you to learn of it, not to tell you when I was so overcome, but I didn’t think that the right way to do it.’ And I’d do it now. I wouldn’t wait. I’d let her know soon as I could as I said in that pitch so she’d start adjusting to it soon as she could too. And that’s what I’d also tell her, my reasons for just shoving it onto her like a ton of bricks. Because whatever you’re going to say to her and whenever you say it and no matter which way she’s going to hear it from you or anyone else, it’s going to hurt like hell, so sooner you do it, sooner it’s done with. Is anyone there with her, or can there be?” “She’s at her parents’ place now.” “Even better. They’ll take care of her, though they’ve got their own big loss now, since they probably loved their grandchild too. But she has people who looked after her when she was a girl and I’m sure they’ll do their duty and put back their own sadness for the time being to see to her, since hers has got to be so much worse. You’re lucky, I mean she is, for that piece of good fortune, though relative, relative, for it couldn’t be one more horrible lousier day. So that’s the way I’d do it; no other way. But if you think the way the professional crisis experts suggest you do it is better, go ahead. But all those people surrounding her, accumulating where she is, she’d know something was wrong before she was told. And that’d take lots of calls and time and you’d be a wreck by the end of it before you even got up the nerve to tell her. My way, it’s rough and maybe even brutal but it’s right out, done, and then you start the bandaging and healing process. Then I’d have her parents drive her here, if they still drive and have a car, or a sister or someone — she have a sister or brother around?” “Nowhere near.” “Then a good friend. Or her parents can hire a private car if they’re too emotionally worked up over it themselves and have the money, or rent a rented one — for something like this, if it’s the private car, you beg, borrow or steal for it, or you give them your credit card number and pay for it yourself. And then you two can go through what you have to, face to face at this hospital even if your little girl by then, Julie, is with the medical examiner ten miles from here. She’s not that far away, is she?” “My wife? About three hours by car. Maybe longer because of the trouble in finding this place.” “So. There’d be doctors and nurses and medicines to help if it ever got that bad, which it probably will and should. I say tell it quick and get it out — here, from inside. And with those three to four hours in between your telling her and her getting here, a lot will already have been started in her getting to accept it, though the real crash won’t come till she sees you and the deceased. And in it taking place here — in fact, they probably won’t remove her to the examiner’s till your wife gets here. They definitely want to determine the angle the bullet came in and caliber of it but I’m almost sure, if you ask, they’ll hold out till your wife comes; it’d only be right. You don’t want her seeing the little girl after she’s been examined really bad, which they sometimes have to do. But I was saying that in that too, in it all taking place in the hospital with your wife, you’re in, well, not luck but something like it. Just that you’re here at the worst time of it, where people who can help, can help you.” “No, I don’t think so but thank you.” “No to what?” “To a lot, and maybe yes to some of it too, but I don’t want to go into it this moment.” “Boy is this tough. You poor guy,” and pats his shoulder and then leaves his hand there. “We’re also told to do this, to make physical contact with pats and holding hands and looking in the eyes, when someone’s really emotionally hurt, but that’s not why I’m doing it I want you to know. When you do it that way, because you have to, it’s bullshit. Am I being too frank?” “No. I’m not sure. Thank you. I think — you’re all through with me, aren’t you?” “Hey, I only came in here to pee and then we got caught in conversation. Sure, if you had said something important to the crime while we were talking about other things, like a vivid description of the hyenas who did it or you suddenly remembered their license plate number, naturally I would have been interested and reported it back to my superiors.” “Then I’ll get out of here, see my older daughter, maybe also see the younger one all cleaned. I’ve got to sometime.” “Fine. I know what room the other cops took your older girl to, so I’ll lead you,” and holds the door open for him, takes him by the arm and they leave.
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